Until very recently I was madly in love with the great mystical city of Istanbul. I thought that no place could be so grand, nor so steeped in history, and that love has not diminished, but a new light has come into my life: Damascus.

Damascus, one of greatest cities in history, was already old when Rome was founded. Its heritage seeps from every wall, permeating the fabric of the city and the very bones of the citizens, the friendliest people that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Damascus’s dilapidated grandeur is absolutely magical, oozing surreal emotions and passions in dreamlike splendour.

It is no exaggeration to say that visiting Damascus brings me a sense of renewal. It is like waking from a night’s sleep a day younger, not older. All the words in the world cannot describe this place. You need to go there to feel its soul and energy, for it is for ever young.

This quote from Alphonse de Lamartine is such a perfect way to imagine the city, I love it.

‘Through a gap in the rocks, my eye fell on the strangest and most fantastic sight which man has ever seen: it was Damascus and its boundless desert, a few hundred feet below my path … first the town, surrounded by its walls, a forest of minarets of all shapes, watered by the seven branches of its river, and streams without number, until the view is lost in a labyrinth of flower gardens and trees…’