Aleppo
The citadel on its hill, the covered souks rising from the rubble, and the best food in the country. Aleppo is coming back on its own terms.
Aleppo was the trading city, Damascus the capital. You feel it in the scale of the khans and in the way people talk about money and food in the same breath. The citadel has stood on its mound for four thousand years and survived the last war better than the streets around it.
Reconstruction is visible everywhere. Parts of the covered souk are open again, the Umayyad Mosque is being rebuilt stone by stone, and the Christian quarter of Jdeideh has its cafés back. Guests who come now see a city mid-sentence.
Plan a full day for the citadel and souks, a second for Jdeideh and the kitchens. Kebab with cherries is not a tourist dish here, it is dinner.