Syria this December

[pdiaz]

Hi guys,

My gf and I are touring Syria this December (19-30, but only about 7 or 8 days cycling as we'd like to see Aleppo and Damascus). Any experiences? Route ideas?

We travel self supported. I understand it's going to be quite cold, although we've camped in the desert before in Morocco and I don't expect it to be much colder; am I right?

We are still thinking about the route, we fly in and out from Damascus, and a preliminary route would be
to start from Damascus or Palmyra and work our way up to Aleppo, see the city and go back to Damascus by train. Our KM "budget" is about 600Km/8 days (there is not a lot of daylight) Would it make sense to start from Palmyra instead of Damascus, and use the time saved to visit other places or is the route Damascus - Palmyra interesting?

Any information or past experience would be greatly appreciated!

Also, we are flying with BMI. The process of booking the bikes into the flight has been extremely confusing. There is no option to do it using the website and the first two times we called them we were told that a bicycle does not count as sporting equipment (contradicting what their own website says)... Anyway, after making a fuss about it and waiting for a callback that did not happen, we called again and the guy at the other end of the line said no problem, it will be 25 quid per bike per flight, which is fine with us. Problem is that in the booking webpage it does not say anything confirming the bike booking (the guy told us it would) and we are afraid of getting to the airport only to find out another idiot trying to charge our bikes as excess luggage....I guess we will call them again, but I would like to hear from someone that has used BMI before.

So, has anyone here flown bikes with BMI ?


Thanks a lot for the help!

(sorry for copying verbatim from my post @ bikeforums.net - I read both forums

 

[elmo]

Hi

I was there towards the end of April this year. We started in Beirut, heading north along the coast to Byblos and crossed the border to Syria in North Lebanon. We stopped at the Krak des Chavalier, which was stunning and then headed east to Palmyra/Talmud - which is a definite must see if you're in Syria. We then headed down to Damascus - ended up in a van in fact as the road was terrible, traffic horrendous and we were trying to cycle into a sandstorm.

We spent a couple of days in damascus which was fantastic again - going to Malula and surrounding area, and then headed west back into Lebanon going through the Beqaa to Beruit. It was warm enough when we were there but I'd guess it could be freezing in December. I was actually back in Lebanon last week and although it was warm in Beirut, the mountains above and the Beqaa were very chilly.

So - I'd avoid the main Damascus-Palmyra road, its busy with little or no shoulder for a lot of the way. Traffic around Damascus is as bad as it gets, and be ready for some cold weather.

We stayed here http://www.beitrose.com/ in Damascus which gets my vote - really nice place with great people and Berbers at the Krak which was pretty good. Hotels in Palmyra are pretty poor tbh, I cant imagine there will be much competition in december though... We didnt camp, so cant offer advice there.

Syria was great, but not really from a cycling point of view - more fanastic destinations linked by fairly "serious" roads. Lebanon, however, is a different story great cycling _and_ great places

In April I flew with BMI into Beirut, no problem that I can recall with the bike - I think I just turned up with it. Last time I flew MEA, which is a much more pleasant experience. I guess you could fly into Aleppo and out from Damascus with BMI (if they still do the Aleppo route).

Not sure if any of that helps you tbh...

jon

 

[pdiaz]

Jon,

Thanks a lot for the information, very useful indeed. I think we are going to take a van/bus from Damascus to Palmyra and start there. It should be easy enough to find one right?

By the way, how's the mobile phone network over there? Should I expect any kind of reception out of the big cities?

Thanks again,
Pedro

 

[elmo]

yep, or a taxi for that matter - the cost of a taxi from damascus to amman - a couple of hundred miles crossing a major border was less than the return fare in a black cab from my flat in central london to paddington station... comfier too

No problems with mobile phone reception that i recall. I had a job interview by phone in fact when I was walking up to the Krak...

Great place

 

[pdiaz]

Excellent man, thanks again for the info!

 

[Dormouse]

I was in eastern Syria in December on business and I remember the first day it was sleeting and snowing, definitely not good for cycling! However for the rest of the trip it was fine but chilly.

I thought it was a very old fashioned place, a bit like travelling back in time by 50 years so quite interesting in some ways.