Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We were taken to our hotel through the narrow, crowded and quite chaotic side streets of
Aleppo. The Baron Hotel was a legendary institution in Aleppo; owned by the Armenian
Mazloumian family. It had hosted royalty and famous historic figures from around the
world such as Agatha Christie (accompanying her husband, and going under her married
name of Mrs. Mallowan). Agatha Christie had stayed there while her husband, an archeolo-
gist, investigated nearby sites. The action at the start of Agatha Christie's classic, “Murder
on the Orient Express” begins in Aleppo railway station. President Roosevelt had been a
guest there and Kemal Atatürk had used it as his temporary headquarters during the de-
feat by the British of the Ottomans and Young Turks in Syria. Charles Lindbergh and T. E.
Lawrence (plotting the defeat of the Ottomans) had also been there and T.E. Lawrence had
infamously left without paying his bill, which is still brazenly and proudly displayed above
the bar. Throw in a list of kings and queens and that was why the Hotel Baron was high
on my list of “must see” places. I had done some research on the hotel and from all that I
had read, it had definitely seen better days and my hopes of experiencing the grandeur of
the past were not unrealistically high. “Rundown and sad and a shadow of its former glory”
was the gist of the various descriptions that I came across.
On arrival at the hotel, we were led to a dingy room with faded orange, painted walls but a
lot of “character”. That word could be used to describe woodworm, flaked paint, inefficient
but quaint radiators and a host of conditions that require lots of attention. Alarmingly for us,
in the room next door, someone was attacking the walls with a sledgehammer and clouds of
dust were escaping down the corridor, glinting in the beams of sunlight and leaving a fine
film of plaster dust on the carpet, which captured precise imprints of all the passing soles.
This was not a good start. Reluctantly, we were obliged to ask for a new room and we were
moved to the other side of the hotel; to the newly renovated side. This part was bereft of
character and history but it was full of acceptable modern comforts and it was far enough
away from the renovation site to allow for more relaxation and air that could be breathed
without the help of an oxygen tank or a surgical mask.
The hotel had originally been built on the edge of the city and there were quaint prints on
the walls as evidence of those long gone times. It was said that the guests in those days had
fired off muskets into the woods opposite the hotel to bring down wild pheasants. Times
had certainly changed. The city had encroached and the sight of woods and wild game were
inconceivable now. The roar of traffic replaced the songs of birds and the nature had re-
treated to an ever-diminishing and distant exile.
In front of the hotel, there was a raised terrace or balcony with tables and chairs. It was
at the top of the entry staircase to the hotel and even although it was exposed to the street
noise, in a strange way, it occupied a more relaxing location than the street side cafes,
