Alleys & Houses of Damascus

when you mention the name of Damascus the time cycle takes you on a journey through the many civilizations that passed by Damascus when someone stands at the gates of this wonderful city wondering in any age will go in every neighborhood and every alleyway tells tales of history when you stand in front of one of the old houses puzzled any story will live during some time takes your time to the past but this past is still going on splendor in the design and good cohabiting population customs and traditions still maintain their heritage and values every house and every corner testifies to the glorious past and the continuous present.

Alleys of Damascus:

The streets and markets long time ago were paved with stones and have sidewalk and itinerant tourists in markets attract them the neighborhoods and alleys and authentic scenes make them stop which are still maintained by the city among the most neighborhoods the first to draw attention is a wide door of the district which had been shutting down and they used a small door for passage in the middle of the big door which called (khokha) And see the houses of the neighborhoods has emerged with kiosks converged to each other and withheld the sun on narrow  alley and gave it an attractive shadow and stillness we find at the corner of the alley a water faucet which bystanders use it to drink and increases the attractiveness of the residential environment the quite golden colors of the walls which were built from wood and coated with mud mixed with straw. If we go in the neighborhood we see will twist and is divided into small alleys which leads to the doors of dozens of private homes.

There are too many alleys in Damascus and every alley leads to other every alley takes a unique name (Abu Habel) alley this name came from the family name used to live in this alley the tower alley in the medan area comes directly after the intersection of southern circular bridge with the district of Aljzmateha and so called because the presence of an old church there which was built by residents of this neighborhood when they came from Horan in the early nineteenth century The Gin Alley – south west of Hejaz station there are There is a possibility for the origin of this name is a large cemetery in the region from the reign of the mamluks and was been the in place of this alley and known as ahumairia cemetery and it had been removed in the beginning of the century per-haps the existence of this cemetery gave a reason to spread fear and terror in the hearts of some of the common people and has spread fake stories about the emergence of the jinn and demons today this alley turned to stores selling car parts and industrial equipment and some other workshops There are many other alleys each tells a story such as leprosy alley and is a tortuous and located between the al-hamidiyeh market and al-Nouri bimaristan bulgur alley inside Al-jabeha  gate  between the cotton market and Badawi street Albaltjeha alley in the eastern end of Canals alley and Mulberry well Alley off central shura sorties towards the east in the neighborhood of Alfoakhir Altgalbha alley at the top of sal-hiya erea hamraoui alley next to the Alazem palace from the north pomegranates alley in the alhekeba locality and the rock alley there are two alleys under this name the first one in Ki-wan and the second one between the processing school and the hospitality palace and wisdom alley.

H. Mafalani