I've been going through Syria for trips to Europe and back four times now. I haven't been to Palmyra yet though, so I'll definitely try to do that this last time. Weather will be the deciding factor though, it was -5 between Damascus and Homs a couple of weeks ago. As long as there's not ice I'll be ok down to below zero with my Widder vest even on an exposed bike like a Blackbird.

I've always done the coastal route on my way up since it's always such a nice thing to see the mediterrean after being stuck in Riyad for months and riding through a couple of thousand kms of dry desert. Also there's nice things to see on that route, like Krak des Chevaliers and a few other castles. On the way back I've always been in too much of a hurry to do much sightseeing. I'm quite sure I'll skip Aleppo this time since Syria is always quite easily doable within a one-month vacation from Finland and I can't think of any must see things there. So far I've concentrated on doing places that are more difficult to do from Europe. For some of the pictures with finnish explanations check out <http://www.nixu.fi/~dagge/loma-2001/>. Those pics are from a trip back in 2001 when a colleague of mine masochistically anough joined me as a pillion and we went to Mada'in Saleh in Saudi, a bit of diving in Hurghada in Egypt, up through Jordan and Syria where we checked out Krak des Chevaliers and pretty much beelining from there to Germany to drop him off. In the end of the page there's a link to more pictures as 'Kaikki kuvat'.