جولة ٨ : حمص - تدمر .. كتاب في ربوع سورية

Tour: Homs - Palmyra

A tour of history that is not indispensable for an Arab visitor or a foreign tourist without doing it. It is destroyed by its lush green oasis, where the tall palm trees give it a beauty that embraces the beauty of its antiquities. The center of attention for the children of Syria with her and for the arrivals to Syria to visit. Palmyra can be reached directly from Damascus via the Damascus - Palmyra - Deir Ezzor road, or from Homs via a road of about 153 km. After leaving Homs in the south on the Damascus road, about 4 km, a road extending east towards Furqlus and Palmyra branches off through a somewhat undulating plateau. Among the centers of important human gatherings that one passes through through the Homs-Palmyra road, we mention: Furqlus, which is 40 km away from Homs and is located on flat land, about 660 meters high, with a slight inclination towards the north. that distance
About 18 km from Al Furqlus. And then the modest small village of Jabab Hanwa (31 km. Al Furqlus). The second most important human settlement on the Palmyra road is Al-Tayas (75 km from Homs, currently known as Al-Safa), which was built on both sides of the Great Valley of Al-Tayas and adjacent to the town of Al-Tayas from the east, the fourth station (T4), which is modern in construction and organization. The population of the town of Al-Tayas is about 3000 people, and the station Al-Raba’a is about 500 people. Despite the lack of rain in this town (about 275 mm), its lands are teeming with greenery as a result of drawing water from under the surface of the earth by means of numerous wells, which stimulated irrigated agriculture. Its recent prosperity was the construction of the Iraqi oil pumping station next to it, which was affected by the lack of oil passage during the past ten years.

About 3 km before reaching Palmyra, the Homs-Palmyra road merges with the Damascus-Palmyra road, and then we enter the depression of Palmyra Basin, which is famous for its lush palm groves. Figure (17) - . Palmyra is the bride of the Syrian desert and the owner of ancient history and ancient glories, whose ruins perched on her land, west of present-day Palmyra, tell us of the greatness and originality of her people, and the heroism and magnificence of her beautiful queen, Zenobia, whose fame spread across the horizons, and the sleeper of the Emperor of Rome, Aurelian, in the second half of the third century AD.

Ancient Palmyra arose at its inception in the Neolithic era around the spring of Afqa, where the homes of some people from the Canaanite and Aramaic tribes gathered around it, and with time they erected there a temple to God (Bel). The Arameans called it Tadmorto. As for the Romans, they called it Palmyra, meaning the town of palm trees.
- Palmyra lived through the heyday of its prosperity in the third quarter of the third century AD, during the reign of its charming brown queen, Zenobia. Ancient Palmyra was spread over a land area of ​​about 6 km2, and this city is now living ruins through which it is easy for one to imagine the greatness of its past, and the brilliance of its civilization with its immortalized architecture. Among the most important monuments of Palmyra that are worth a visit, we mention: the Great Temple of Baal, the Triumphal Arch, the theater, the Agora, Hammamet, the Long Street, the Senate, the Baal Shamin Temple, the Temple of Nabo, the Dio Celsian Temple, the Byzantine Church, the walls surrounding the city (the defensive wall and the customs wall), the cemeteries located in the west The city, as well as the castle of Fakhr al-Din al-Ma’ani, which was built in the seventeenth century AD on a high plateau northwest of the city, from which the city unfolds in all its dimensions and features. Outside the old city directly to the east of the road is the famous Palmyra Museum rich in the achievements of Palmyra art. It is also worth visiting the famous historical horizon, which is the life of the famous Palmyra oasis, in addition to the importance of its sulfur mineral water in the field of health, because the temperature of the spring water is around 33 C in all seasons of the year. I'm sold out

The presence of some present-day Palmyra is located next to the old Palmyra to the east of it directly, with / tourist facilities on the edge of the old city, as in the hotels Palmyra Al-Sham and Zenobia, and many restaurants. In addition to the two previous hotels, there are two other hotels in New Palmyra, the Orient Hotel and the New Tourism Hotel, and many popular restaurants.

To the south and southeast of Palmyra lies its well-known Sabkhat, known as Sabkhat al-Moh, whose dimensions are about 25 (15) km. In it, a group of valleys ends, including Qasr al-Hallabat al-Sawwanah, Ghadir al-Hamal, Wadi al-Alik and al-Alayaniyya. One can see palm gardens surrounding the old city from the east and southeast.