Ancient homes - beautifully preserved heritage

These pics are awesome to say the least!   They make you travel back into the distant past down the time tunnel. 

700-year-old stone carved homes in Iran.  The homes are carved inside the rocky hills.  Many of these ancient homes are on split level. 

Turning the pages of history, a little to the west of Persia ..

This is the fascinating old  Damascus City.  The Old City is everyone's favorite.  No one who has been  there will say they don't like it.  It is fascinating for its history,  architecture and culture. Highlights include the Umayyad Mosque,  Straight Street, Al-Hamidiyya Souq, Azem Palace and the Citadel. But it  is also great just to wander around the various souqs and narrow streets  that people have lived and worked in for centuries.  The ancient  residential flats in the alleys here are over a thousand years old!   Often known as "Syria's icing of the cake."

The Damascus Straight Street was built in the Roman era and  runs from east to west in the old city of Damascus.  In Arabic it's known as Al-Shāri` al-Mustaqīm or  الشارع المستقيم

A typical part of  the Old Damascus Bazar with its famous and mesmerizing medieval alleys.   Except for the electricity that's lighting the shops, the basic  architecture and geography of the place is still maintained as it was  hundreds of years ago.  Truly gorgeous!  As soon as you get inside Old  Damascus, you dive into a maze of alleys, labyrinth of small streets  with arches, shops, mosques, churches and remnants of old defensive  wall with little eateries hidden behind small doors.  From every corner  the age of the houses dawns on you.  It's actually easy to imagine that  life here might not have been a whole lot different many centuries ago.