Aleppo

	Aleppo's famous citadel dates back at least to the Greek period

Aleppo is a famous city with a marvellous citadel and an interesting museum. Unfortunately, the tight schedule of our filming expedition did not allow us time to visit the former and Syrian restrictions on filming did not allows us to bring you news of the latter.

However, for a starving cameraman, these ancient attractions pale into insignificance beside the discovery of a shop crammed with delicious, mouth-watering, Arab sweets - and when you find that the staff are friendly, the service prompt and the sweets every bit as good as they look, you just have to get out the camera and tell the world!

Unfortunately the disastrous "Arab Spring" revolts in Syria have left Aleppo largely in ruins. Almost certainly this sweet shop is no more and I believe that the citadel has been damaged. What has happened to the museum I have no idea, but I fear the worst. What is more, because of the stupid policy of forbidding photography, there is no world-wide cache of photographs to form a record of the majority of its contents.