[size=18][b][color:5ee0=red]Homs[/color][/b]
Coming from Damascus you turn right here for Palmyra, left for Crac Des Chevaliers, and you cross the whole town from south to north to get to Hama. The visitor very often remembers Homs merely for its traffic jams. A crossroads, an industrial town, a town repeatedly struck by earthquakes throughout its history. Homs seems to lack tourist "attractions" insofar as the word implies the picturesque or the unique. The fact is generally recognized, but it is not necessarily a serious shortcoming.
[b][color:5ee0=red]Industry, the key to the future[/color][/b]
The citizens of Homs accept the situation philosophically; for their concerns and their hopes lie elsewhere - in the economic development of their town which is the natural consequence of its geographical situation. Half-way between Damascus and Aleppo and at the beginning of the rich Orontes valley, Home moreover commands the famous "gap" that takes its name -the sole easy line of communication between Syria 's coast and her hinterland. History is now paralleled by economics. The modern oil-pipelines follow the route taken by the armies and caravans of old. The most important oil refinery in Syria, on the western outskirts of Homs on the road to Tartous, has already been enlarged on two occasions. Petrol trucks leave Homs in all directions.
A sugar refinery, spinning mills, silk and rayon weaving, the hydroelectric works at Rastan all show the way in which all shadow the way in which the region is development ping. Metallurgical industries, fertilizer plants for the treatment of phosphates from Palmyra , new textile factories to process the cotton from around Lake Qattineh, the lake upstream from Homs itself, all assure the economic future of the city.
It is already a busy place with more than 1,300,000 inhabitants.
What to see:
- Mausolem
- Church of St. Elian
- Emesa
- Lake Qattineh
- Lake Al Assad
- Nahr al Assi
- Tal Nabi Mend
- Qatna
- Forgloss
[/size]
Home 
Calendar
