Syria

[Heresson]

To get to the castle, You have to take a bus from the most obscure station in Latakia (Al-Ladhiqiyyah) to Al-Haffa village. From there, for 200 syrian pounds (4 dolars; I managed to pay 150, but with difficulties) You can hire a taxi for a return drive. It is good to stop for a minute when You're getting close to get a picture of the castle. As You see on my pictures, though, it is impossible to fit it into one picture, not from this angle at least. Unfortunatelly I don't recall how much have I paid for Haffa. 20 syrian pounds (0,4 dolar) I think.

[Heresson]

Now some pictures from easter. Here are armenian-orthodox girls.

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here's the armenian - orthodox cathedral

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it's all in Damascus, off course.

here's the greek-catholic cathedral

oh, when I mean cathedral, it's the cathedral of patriarch of Antioch

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here's the greek-catholic patriarch of Antioch and greek-catholic scouts. Only christians have scouts in Syria. It seems every denomination has its own organisation.

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these are the jacobits (Syrian-orthodox)

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here is their cathedral

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communists were also having somekind of party at this time. I was not present, my friend was - they were waving soviet symbols and Che Guevara, nothing special.

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here is the orthodox cathedral

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and the syrian-catholic one

[Heresson]

Ma'lula is one of a few still majorly christian places in Syria. Here You can see pics from monasteries of Sts Sergius and Bacchus, and from monastery of St Tekla, the disciple of St Paul that used to take part in his travels and lived here (however, there's some cave of her near Seleucia/Silifke as well) and from other places.
The place is interesting because of a small canion and also the shape of the highland over the city, which begins to go up and then falls very sharply, as You can see on the pics.

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the problem is I'd like to post just some of the pics I've prepared, but these aren't named, and there's no program I could open them with.

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St Tekla

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St Sergius and Bacchus I think