Inanna Hotel

A historic masterpiece

Inanna Hotel occupies a restored Damascene house on a lane off Bab Sharqi, deep in the old city and a few minutes on foot from Straight Street and the Christian quarter. Its heart is the courtyard: a marble fountain, lemon trees and climbing vines under a glass roof, framed by walls of banded black basalt and pale limestone and an iwan painted in turquoise and gold. Rooms open off the courtyard and the arcaded gallery above it, furnished with mother-of-pearl inlaid Damascene pieces — one each of six types, from a single room to a junior and a presidential suite. Meals are served at tables set around the fountain, and the house takes only a handful of guests at a time. A quiet, characterful stay for travellers who would rather sleep inside old Damascus than beside it.