After 3 hours, I arrived in #Zaxo / #Zakho, right at the border to 🇹🇷 Habur and 20 km from the border of 🇸🇾 Feyesh Khabur.

Zaxo is a fascinating city : it had around 30.000 inhabitants 50 years ago. With the de-facto autonomy of  #Kurdistan in the Seventies, it suddenly attracted Kurds from all over the region and grew to the 200.000 inhabitants. Nowadays it's an economically important hub for trade between  Kurdistan, 🇮🇶 Iraq, the 🇸🇾 Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria /  #Rojava and 🇹🇷 Turkey.

I was highly surprised, I expected an ugly, transportation and cargo industry hub but what I got was a beautiful, clean, green and prosperous city which rather looks like in wealthy parts of Spain or Italy.

Despite its economic importance, from an international tourism perspective, Zaxo is pretty irrelevant. From a local tourism perspective, Zaxo in opposite is a major cultural attraction for Kurds from the region. Right now, Zaxo prepares for the Seluserik Festival next week. The only internationally known tourist attraction seems to be the #DelalBridge - now with a brand new, beautiful museum next to it. #AzadiRail