Enjoyable Visits to Syria

The modern country of Syria has been often in the news in the past few months and years. In Biblical times Syria had contacts with Biblical Israel. When I requested all forms of Bible references to Syria In the English Standard Version I found 133 matches in in 114 verses. Only nine of these are in the New Testament. We might find additional verses if we searched for various towns or regions of Syria such as Damascus, Hamath or Riblah we would have more. ccc

Because of the significance of Syria in Biblical times, I included the region in some of my tours.

I had the pleasure of visiting Syria several times since the first visit in 1967.During the early years of leading groups to the Bible Lands the tours were longer than those now. The first tour was April 24-May 9, 1967. On that tour my group of 19 visited Rome, Cairo, Beirut, Amman, Jerusalem in Jordan, and made a crossing at Mandelbaum Gate as the place of crossing was known, into Israel. While in Jerusalem, Jordan, we made a trip to Petra in one day. On the final days of the tour we visited Athens and Corinth in Greece before returning to the USA.

Incidentally, as a matter of interest to those who now pay five or six thousand dollars for a tour of seven to ten days That tour of 16 days cost $963.00 from New York. This included a room with bath, and three meals a day. Some hotels had rooms with a shower somewhere along the hall that had to be shared by several visitors.

On Monday, May 1, 1967, our group made a day trip from Beirut to Baalbek, Lebanon and Damascus, Syria.

From that time, almost annually we visited Damascus until about 1974. In a 1976 brochure there is this warning:

SPECIAL NOTICE: Political conditions in Lebanon have made it unsafe for tourists during the Summer and Fall of 1975. If conditions are not safe at the time of our tour, we have an alternate plan which wisely uses the time in Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem.

My recollection is that no other tour included Damascus.

In May, 2002 David McClister, one of my colleagues at Florida College, and I spent three weeks traveling in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The time was about equally divided between the three countries. We covered Syria by traveling along the southern border adjoining Lebanon, then we went north as far as possible along the Mediterranean. We turned East and visited places such as Ebla before going north to Aleppo. From there we visited sites to the north including the Euphrates River. This was near the Turkish border and Carchemish.

After that we returned to Damascus for a few days and then we traveled in Jordan for a week.