Slow train to Lattakia

There are two types of train from Aleppo to Lattakia, the suburban train and the express, each with first & second class. Second class on the slow train costs less than a euro and takes three & a half hours to arrive in Syria’s main coastal city.

Why pay twice the price to lose an hour of gazing out of the window at the sublime valleys that sit between Aleppo & the coast?

Obtaining a ticket is less simple than the choice of which train to take: once you have explained where you want to go, at what time, and in which class, you then cross the station to register your details from your passport, then back across to get the details validated. Bureaucracy at its best.