Touring Irbil

Being in Irbil is like an out-of-body experience for anyone thats spent time in the rest of Iraq. The people here are friendly and the security situation allows us to not have to wear body armor or helmets when traveling through the city. In fact, my day yesterday was pretty much like any day I would have spent in any other city in the world. The guys here asked if I wanted to see downtown Irbil on our lunch break, and I naturally had my boots on and camera in hand before the question was even finished.

The first place we visited was the Citadel, which is a settlement in the center of the city. This settlement is one of the oldest continuously occupied in the world, with estimates of around 8,000 years. As I later found out, the buildings themselves are not actually that old - each group of people built on top of previous settlements, which is why the settlement is on top of a 100-foot hill. I found an interesting story online that his some great information about the citadel on MSN.

After the Citadel we went to a very large mosque downtown. I had hoped to have had the chance to walk around but the gate we were at was closed and Havel, the Kurdish employee taking us around, didnt know about the open gate on the back side. I at least got some photos from the outside though.

After the mosque we drove to the outskirts of the city to a medieval castle that was built by a princess of the British Empire. Its small by most standards, but beautiful nonetheless. The area around the castle is ringed by small hills leading up to mountins a 5-10 miles further away - a beautiful vista for sure.

The photo above is a view of the Citadel in the center of Irbil.