The Al-Hamidiyeh Souq is the beating heart of the old city. Built in the late 19th century under Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, this vaulted iron-roofed thoroughfare is more of a sensory assault than a simple shopping trip. The ceiling is famously peppered with tiny holes, the result of machine-gun fire during the 1925 Syrian Rebellion, which today create beautiful, dusty shafts of light that illuminate the chaos below. It is the kind of place where you can buy a wedding dress, a kilo of cumin, socks mocking the former dictator and a dried lizard, all within a ten-meter radius.