Damascus

Al-Madinah/City Hotel

(http://www.cityhotel-sy.com), sharia omar ben abi rabia, tel.: +963 963 11 2219375, 00963 11 2210024, fax: 00963 112453817, e-mail: [email protected].

Also known as Ghazal Hotel, this hotel is a newcomer in the Saroujah budget hotels. It has a very attractive, typical Damascus courtyard. For breakfast, they serve the usual range of teas and coffeea and good water pipe free of charge. You can bring alcohol to drink in the courtyard if you like. Rooms and facilities are new. Several new, clean bathrooms with hot water and also a hostel portion in the same structure. Managers keep a safe on the premises for valuables. Owners are helpful and service-minded, but they speak less English than their competitors and don't arrange tours or otherwise on a regular basis but could still probably help out if you ask. English spoken enough to arrange rooms, get/give directions and special circumstances. For foreign students of Arabic, the hotel staff is very accommodating and surprisingly insightful with the limited English they speak. If you are a light sleeper, you should avoid rooms close to the kitchen, bathrooms, and reception area. The rooms facing onto the courtyard are peaceful.

rents a rooms for students studying in Damascus in a beautiful, traditional Arabic house situated in the heart of the Old City of Damascus. The house includes seven bedrooms, two bathrooms, two kitchens, a beautiful courtyard, and a rooftop terrace with a great view over Old Damascus. Each bedroom is furnished with a TV, bed, wardrobe, dresser and heater A/C in some rooms. The kitchens are fully equipped gas stove, microwave, kettle, oven etc. and the modern bathrooms have hot water 24 hours a day. Washing machine, internet access dial-up and fixed telephone landline are also available.

is in the Old City, near the St. Thomas gate, on one of those two-metre-wide pedestrian-only streets that are so common in the older neighbourhoods. The Old Damascus has about a dozen rooms and was formerly a typical Arab home of the sort common among prosperous merchants in the early 1900s. A Syrian-Arab family owns and operates the hotel.

Offers various-sized apartments, suitable for all numbers of persons. Each apartment has its own balcony with breath-taking views of the mountains.

The hotel has 25 air conditioned rooms doubles, twins, and triples with satellite TV, telephone and mini-bar. Safe deposit box at the reception. Staff are available to assist guests 24 hours a day. Summer terrace looking out over Damascus city.

Offers all the services of a four-star international hotel; Presidential suite, bathrooms are provided with jacuzzi, comfortable rooms equipped with the modern technology services; communication facilities including free high speed internet wireless in the lobby and wired in the rooms. Additional facilities include an international restaurant, bar and café.

Souq-Al-Saroujah is where you find the cluster of backpacker hotels. Martyr's Square or "Merjeh" in Arabic is the other place worth considering if you're on a tight budget, though many of the places double as brothels. However, at least the hotels below can be recommended. Women alone should avoid hotels at Merjeh Sqaure, because it's the red light district of Damascus.

Most hotels in Damascus claiming to be 5 stars are actually closer to what Western travellers know as 2 stars. The Syrian government runs its own accreditation agency that gives highly suspect inflated ratings to hotels owned by Syrian chains and those that have paid "baksheesh" bribes to the authorities. Due to the American sanctions of Syria, credit cards linked to US Banks will not be accepted this is pretty much every credit card in the world.