What has the Bagdad Café to offer?

Nowadays there is an increasing number of travellers, both of Syrian nationality and foreigners, who are attracted by Syria's rich cultural heritage. Within a one-day trip from Damascus you can reach the ruins of the Roman town of Palmyra (Tudmor), at some 250 km distance. The Bagdad Cafe is located mid-way, some 135 km from Damascus and at some 115 km of Palmyra. It is an ideal spot to have a break in the journey and stretch your legs a while. Not only that, you can have some tea, coffee or refreshments.

A bit of conversation with the members of the Sherfaldine family manning the Bagdad Café will certainly provide you with an entertaining moment and a good perception of the past and present life in the Syrian Desert. Their knowledge of it, their interest on their own life style and origin and their keen appetite for getting to know other cultures and people make them both ideal talkers and listeners.

The Sherfaldines' way of converting their nomadic life into a more-settled one and their approach to solve daily life problems, not only theirs but also those of the passers-by, is something to be commended. You will never find them without anything to do; they are continuously active trying to improve their services and hospitality, as well as their life. At present, four brothers, three of them with their respective wives and children, manage the Bagdad Café settlement, including the farm, family housing and the coffee shop itself. During the school time, the children move temporarily to As Shel, a small village at the foot of the Anti-Lebanon mountains.

Whilst shepherding, spending hours with their cattle in the countryside, they have become interested in collecting rock samples of peculiar shapes, of which they have a good collection at the Café; they have become good connoisseurs of the local palaeontology and have added to their display room a good variety of fossils, preferentially of marine Cretaceous and Tertiary specimens.