Euphrates River and the Jezira

The journey here through the vast desert steppe is long and arduous with the monotony of the beige stony plains only broken by tiny, forlorn villages that somehow hang on in the heat and dust. Rising majestically out of the emptiness is the enormous walled city of Rasafeh, a lonely ruin where you're likely to be the only visitor. On reaching the Euphrates the landscape suddenly comes alive, as this ancient river nurtures the surrounding land and the river's banks erupt in a riot of greenery, with fields of cotton and corn. The blue waters of the Euphrates were historically an important medium for trade, a fact marked by the extensive ruins that can still be found beside it.