Ask a Policeman.
Here's one for Grandson Oliver:

Where's your Dad when we need him?

Signpost on the Road to Damascus

This one gave us some difficulty in deciding. So, no messing about, no easy option, we turned left.
Not exactly in our plans.
One hundred yards down the Road to Baghdad was the first petrol station we'd seen since leaving Palmyra.
All filled up, it was, I'm afraid, back to the easy option and west to Damascus.

There had been a filling station before here, at another major crossroads, but for diesel only. It was lunchtime and was full of huge trucks taking a break. We received a few invitations from the drivers to join them for a full-blown meal which we would have accepted if it had not been dark by 5pm, but it was an eyeopener anyway. The driver would nip round to the righthand side of his 40-ton-plus unit and pull out a huge compartment on runners. There on a table was laid out a four course meal, upon a damask table cloth, plus chairs stored below. Three of his buddies joined him for the magnificent feast and they called us over as well.
It was, for all the world, as though a 5-star chef lived in the engine compartment and had prepared this spread while the truck was on the road. I couldn't quite work it out!
We had to hurry on, trusting there'd be petrol at the Baghdad turn-off.

Years ago there was a remote and solitary café near this junction, The Baghdad Café, that became a legend amongst travellers in this area. It led to copies springing up, and in about 6 miles we passed four 'Baghdad Cafes'. We had no way of knowing the genuine thing so we hurried on.

Arriving in Damascus we camped in a northern suburb and took the bus in.
What a NICE place Damascus is.
A very pleasant and peaceful mosque, with westerners invited to enter the prayer room during prayers, which we had never encountered before.
And a wonderful series of souks, with wide alleyways (wide for a souk, that is), the usual amazing range of merchants; rope makers next to book shops, engineering machine shops next to incredibly colourful fabric merchants, and an atmosphere of calm peacefulness we had not yet encountered in Syria. Electric bicycles, quite common in Syria, silently whizzed up and down the alleys.

Outside in the Old Town the atmosphere continued amongst old French colonial style buildings squeezed up tight against each other, mixed up with Arabic mosques, Christian churches, Syrian tea houses and people and architecture from many other cultures, making this whole area simply a very nice place to be.
Highly recommended.

After a couple of days here it was off to Bosra, home of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatre in the world, followed by the Jordanian border and the next country on the list.

Magnificent Roman Amphitheatre at Bosra.