If Syria's Aleppo was a full-flavored ancient city steeped in traditon the desert Roman Oasis city of Palmyra was even more full of mystery - a wonderfully preserved place, largest city of the Eastern Roman Empire perched on the edge of the endless deserts guarding Indian and Chinese commerce.

Today stark, lonely, five-storey funeral towers stand proud in the shreiking desert, Palmyra & Tadmor isolated still and almost undisturbed. To Palmyra's east only sandy desert, range land for Beduin familys - their cloth tents and untamed camels gliding over the salt desert, the oasis dates and tourist dollars of Tadmor (Palmyra's present-day market town) calling sometimes drawing them in to do their shopping, still proudly wearing their Kuffiyeh (red checkered head scarf) and droopy-sleeved cloak proudly as they walk through town.

Damascus' old city was an unbeleiveable bonanza of places to see for their historic interest, architectural beauty, or just plain flavor.

Christianity has some of the deepest parts of its roots in Syria and in the present day so many denominations of Christians thrive here that the Christian quarters of Aleppo and Damascus each boast dozens of churches and cathedrals, the mediterranian coast also covered with Christians living amongs the ruins of the Middle East's finest Crusader Castles.

In Palmyra I saw that the traditionally dressed men and women there looked almost exactly like Catholic clergy - their black neck-to-toe men's cassocks, white colarless shirt underneath (men's Jalebiyeh) and womens frocks, bleached white hoods covered in black head-pieces coming down to their shoulders the spitting image of a nun's habit:

These people are all moslems but their dress shows the origins of the Catholic Church from the middle east, the early middle ages.

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