Syria has always been a center where East an West meet with their varied civilization. It is no wonder that Syria is the cradle of civilization, which flourished throughout history. Monuments, the most important archaeological sites, impregnable castles, citadels and dead cities narrate the glorious history of ancient nations.
The basaltic and the limestone ruins tell about a marvelous architectural art. The Corinthian columns, the khans spread all over the Silk Road, the castles still towering from the Medieval ages, the mosques and palaces are the witnesses of a great rich history.
To know Syria is to have knowledge of a legendary world. Palmyra, for example, is like a pearl in the heart of the desert, Palmyra, rising from the sands, is one of the most graceful and splendid ancient sites in the East, for the glory and the greatness are still evident and fully years after its construction by the Arab Queen Zenobia. It remains one of most famous capitals of the ancient world.

Palmyra is separated by some one hundred kilometers of steppe from the lush valley of the Orontes, to the west. There are more than two hundred kilometers of desert to the cross before you reach the fertile banks of the Euphrates, to the east. To Both north and south there is nothing but sand and stone. But here at Palmyra a last fold of the Anti- Lebanon forms a kind of basin on the edge of which a spring rises out of a long underground channel whose depth has never been measured. This spring is called Afqa (or Ephka) in inscriptions, an Aramaic word meaning " way out'. Its clear blue, slightly sulphurous waters are said to have medicinal properties; they have fed an oasis here with olives and date- palms and cotton and cereals. For generation this oasis was known as Tadmor.