جولة ١٤ دمشق - النبك - دير عطية - قارة .. كتاب في ربوع سورية

. Tour 14 Damascus - An Nabek - Deir Attia - Qara

We had talked about the part of the Damascus-Nabak road in our previous tour.. We will start this tour from the Maaloula junction, taking the Nabek-Homs road, and it is only 200 meters until we exit the valley sandwiched between two mountains, which then opens up to a wide, undulating land confined between the two mountains of Smeikat. Nabek in the east and Jabal Yabroud in the west. Before reaching the village of Al-Qastal, about 500 meters, it forks through Al-Nabek road to the right for a distance of 3 km to the village of Al-Marah, after which it continues for another 2 km to reach Al-Nasiriyah road. Al-Qastal, which is about 70 km from Damascus and about 8 km from Al-Nabek, is a large village with a population of approximately 2,000 people, and it is about 1,350 meters above sea level.

As for Al-Nabak, it is about 80 km away from Damascus, and it is the center of an area with a population of about 25 thousand people (19521 people according to the 1981 census). The ancient al-Nabk is located on a high hill at a height of about 1380 m. From its location, it derives its name because al-Nabk in the language is the small hill that overlooks - west, north and east - lower lands. Urbanization has recently expanded outside the hill and its slopes to the wide valley located west and north-west of it (the Al-Majar Valley), where modern multi-storey buildings are visible, especially to the west of the old road, and Al-Nabk is more recent than its two neighbors, Qara and Yabrud, as some date its age back to the fifth century AH. Al-Nabak is characterized by the abundance of water-wheels in it, and the manufacture of some types of famous sweets (Harisa Al-Nabakia). It contains ancient archaeological buildings, an Ottoman mosque and a khan. And in the eastern mountain of Nabek, 8 km away from it, there is an old deserted monastery of the Syriac Catholics, known as the Monastery of Marmosa the Abyssinian, dating back more than a thousand years. passed
From the west of Nabek, a road extends west towards Yabroud. After the junction of Yabroud Road, about 1000 m, there is a road that extends towards the west to the villages of Al-Sahel and Al-Mushrifah. Al-Sahel is about 8 km away from Al-Nabek, and its population is about 3,000 people. It is located in a depression overlooked from the west by a wide ridge known as Dahr Al-Sahel. To the west of the coast, about 8 km, is the village of Al-Mushrifah, formerly known as Fleita, about 1,700 m above sea level. Its people depend on agriculture (grain) and livestock. To the west of it are archaeological cemetery caves.

After Al-Nabk, about 9 km, Deir Attia appears on the right of the road now, and the first thing we see is a huge hospital building on an artificial hill, and modern houses (villas) with tiled roofs. From afar, the large statue of President Hafez al-Assad appears on a high hill to the left of the road overlooking Deir Attia. Deir Attia is a beautiful country, well-organised, with fairly modern rural houses, the building material of which is mostly stone. Its people are of a good financial standard, due to their previous and present reliance on immigration. It has a population of about 15 thousand people, about two-thirds of whom are Muslims and the rest are Christians. It is ancient in its existence, and it was said that its name arose from the presence of an old monastery near it in the name of Saint Theodoros, which means God’s gift, so it was known as Deir Attia. It contains Roman and Byzantine ruins. And in the north-east, there are orchards of fruit trees.

From opposite Deir Attia, it branches off from Aleppo Road towards the west to the village of Jarajir, which is 9 km away from Deir Attia.

About 8 km after Deir Atiya, the town of Qara lies west of the road at the eastern front of Mount Halima Qara, with a population of about 12,000 people, most of whom are Muslims. Qara is an old town mentioned by Yaqut al-Hamawi in his dictionary. Qara: the name of a large village
on the roadside. .... It is on top of a continent and has running springs on which they farm.” It was known in the Roman and Byzantine eras as Kura, which the Arabs turned into a continent. It has two archaeological buildings, one of which is from the ruins of Nur al-Din Mahmud Zangi (516-569 AH), which is still full of life in most of it. The second is from the ruins of the Sultanate’s viceroy, which was destroyed, and a school was built in its place more than 35 years ago. In Qara is an ancient Roman cave. To the west of it is a small old monastery of a fortress known as the Monastery of Saint Jacob, in which the most beautiful murals from the twelfth century A.D. were discovered, and there is also an old church, the Church of St. Marciris, which is famous for the murals that decorate it.

After crossing Deir Attia, about 3 km, it branches off the Damascus-Homs road, heading towards the northeast, to pass through the village of Al-Hamira, which is about 10 km away from Deir Attia, and it is the last village in the province of Damascus countryside. And Sadad, and then Al-Fruqlis, through Homs - Palmyra.