All of the women in our group, and some of the men, had to don robes to enter the mosque (most mosques don't even allow non-Muslims to go in.) The ladies that you see in black are Shiite worshipers from Iran.

Syrian coffee, as elsewhere in the region, is dark, dense, and drunk sweet. This coffee vendor showed us how he roasts the beans in his tiny shop, then measures them for sale. The white beans on the left side of the photo are cardamom, used to cut the bitterness of the plain coffee. Coffee cut with cardamom is more expensive than coffee on its own. We bought a kilo and made it ourselves aboard.

 

The Souq al-Hamidiyya, or bazaar, is a prominent shopping place for locals in the old city. Corinthian columns leading into the entrance were once part of the western gate of the ancient Roman Temple of Jupiter.  The Roman emperor Trajan visited Damascus and brought the temple's architect, a Damascene named Apollodorus, to Rome. Apollodorus had a successful run building at least ten monuments for Trajan, including the Pillar of Trajan and the Forum. Apollodorus was later executed by Hadrian.

It's a busy, cheerful place, where you can buy belts from men whose only overhead is the belts themselves, or fruits and nuts, bread, or straight-from-the-factory shoes or waterpipes.