We were told there are about 150 shenashils but funding can only restore a small portion of them. It must have been a beautiful area in its day.

The first stop was the Basra Museum which was housed in a former palace of Saddam Hussein (it is rumored he had 100 palaces around the country).

My Husband were on a 12-day tour of Iraq. Along with 8 other travelers and 2 guides, we would be visiting Basra, the Marshlands, ancient cities like Ur and Babylon, Najaf, Karbala, Ctesiphon, Baghdad, and Samara with their mosques and shrines.