On our return to Cairo Hotel, we passed by a house called as the Palestinian Institute. There was a mural on its front facade, expressing its manifesto in English.
We returned to Cairo Hotel and joined another organized tour by the hotel, a journey that would take us from Hama to our next destination, the desert oasis of Palmyra. The first stop on our way was the Roman ruins of Qasr Ibn Wardan. In the middle of an arid landscape where ancient Romans marked their eastern boundary, Emperor Justinian built this enormous complex in the 6th century attempting to impress the desert nomads. A mixture of local materials and Byzantine styles imported from Constantinople created a magnificent architecture that once encompassed a palace, church and barracks. To the Romans, this site was once a beacon on the border that separated civilized and the uncivilized world. The strips of dark basalt stones on the facades create a strong sense of horizontality against the desert horizon, articulating the grandeur of both the structure and the vastness of the surrounding landscape.
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