Seems Syria is well worth visiting. Not only for Palmyra, below, but also for the World Heritage site of the Crusader castle, The Krak des Chevaliers (French for "Fortress of Knights"; Arabic: Qala'at Al-Hosn) near Homs in Syria. Paul Theroux described it as the dream castle of childhood fantasies. T.E. Lawrence called it "the finest castle in the world", “perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world”. And one gets to study the Crusades to boot! Apparently it has some of the best preserved Crusader art in the world.
