Since this year my team are all people with jobs that are actually using their holidays to be here, I've been giving them two days a week off to see some of Syria. This week's two days off was spent in Aleppo, and then spending a day traveling back. When in Aleppo, the team stay at The Baron Hotel. This is possibly the most famous hotel in Syria, where T. E. Lawrence (as in "of Arabia"), and Max Mallowan (and his wife Agatha Christie) stayed in their day. There is something of a legend in the discipline that you are not truly a Syrian archaeologist until you have stayed at the Baron. This is actually a credential I obtained on my first night in Syria in 1998! It was on my way to my first season with the excavations of the citadel at Aleppo. I had taken the bus directly from the Damascus airport, then got a taxi to the citadel, arriving at about midnight. It being a redoubtable fortress of some presence, I thought it best not to assail it, but to find a nice hotel and come back in the morning. I stayed up even later after arriving at the hotel, drinking in the hotel bar with two very nice Egyptians, and probably the ghosts of Lawrence and Mallowan! In 1998 the hotel was not quite as nice as it is now, as all the bathroom fixtures, and, I suspect, the beds, dated back to the days of Lawrence. The following morning, I went down to the breakfast room, and was struck by the size of the sideboards! I could imagine the massive spreads of English breakfasts that probably adorned these edifices in the old days, and I sat down earnestly hoping that the tradition continued! Then some chap came along and put a hard-boiled egg on my plate. Although admittedly disappointed, I ate it with a crusty bun and a cup of coffee, then walked to the citadel to start my career in Syrian archaeology.
The bathrooms are all mod-cons now, with air-conditioning in the rooms and a much more satisfying breakfast, while the hotel offers a history and atmosphere that no other in Syria can match. After our satisfying breakfast (see pic, above) I guided the team through the suq in a manner markedly reminiscent of someone trying to herd cats, until we came to the citadel.
Robert
