This gallery contains 3 photos.
Hamadiya Souk in Damascus, Syria 2011 In 2011, the Hamadiya souk boasted luxury items like these silks. You could find brightly colored high-heeled shoes decorated with rhinestones, poufy ball gowns, like the ones we wore to the prom back in the day, eye-popping displays of wild … Continue reading
This gallery contains 4 photos.
Damascus Syria 2010 Syria isn’t anything like these photos now and I’m sorry for all the horrors the Syrians are living through. I hope that one day soon, life in Damascus and the rest of Syria will return to these halcyon … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Damascus, Syria 2010 She was standing near the entrance to the Hamadiya souk, chatting on her cell phone. A veiled woman in a Muslim country. You could say this is a stereotype of a Muslim woman but the aura of glamor … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Syria 2010 A side street in Damascus It was a warm day in autumn. We and the Damascenes dressed in shirt-sleeves, but this man, used to the heat of the Syrian desert, wore a wool coat and a wool scarf … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Mardin, Turkey 2009 This was shot from the balcony of our hotel room in Mardin. We stayed in a beautiful palace from the Ottoman era. We walked to our palace room through the neighborhood streets, passing and observing the locals … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The ruins of Apamea near Hama Syria 2010 Apamea was founded in 300 B.C. by one of Alexander the Great’s generals and later, under Pompey, became a Roman city in 64 A.D. These columns remain from the 1200 columns that lined … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Damascus Syria 2011 A couple of years before I went to Syria, I searched Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar for coppersmiths. There aren’t any these days. The Grand Bazaar is like a modern shopping mall and all the atmosphere that was priceless … Continue reading
This gallery contains 3 photos.
The tradition of a refreshing drink carries on in the Damascus souk of Hamadiyeh. I first saw these men carrying that large, ornate urn on their back when I visited the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul in the early 90’s. Then the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 2 photos.
The word sherbet comes from the Arabic word ‘sharbat’ and originally it meant a fruit drink. I’ve read that the Arabs, Persians, Turks, etc. had many fruit flavored drinks with exotic ingredients such as rose water and orange blossom water. I … Continue reading
This gallery contains 3 photos.
Aleppo, Syria 2010. These photos show what life was like in Syria before the uprising. A tourist only sees the surface and cannot understand the real situation. I felt that the Syrian people were friendly and generous and I enjoyed … Continue reading
