Baghdad Travel Guide

I visited Baghdad in the summer of 1972, shortly before going to Munich for the Olympics. Almost NOTHING I remember of the city would hold true today. I remember staying in a spare hotel with a ceiling fan, narrow beds, concrete walls and floors and a garden straigh from A Thousand and One Nights: it was green and lush and ablaze with huge roses. I got up very early the first morning there and sat in the garden enjoying the clear desert light and the fragrance of the roses. A barefoot teenage Arab boy, dressed in a galabea that looked as if it was made of mattress ticking, brought me some fragrant tea and small tomato and cucumber sandwiches...not something I had ever had for breakfast before; that morning will stay with me forever. It is impossible for me to visualize the Baghdad of today; it is painful to try and reconcile my memory with the reality of news coming from there every day. Saddam Hussein was around already; he was the vice-president. Who would have predicted that his ascent to power would ultimately lead to the disaster that is contemporary Iraq? Who would have predicted that early summer morning in Baghdad that the whole world would soon watch in horror as terrorists took Israeli hostages at the Olympic games? To travel is such a wonderful, uplifting, sad and sometimes disillusioning experience. I would have loved to return to Baghdad; I fear I never shall.

Just don't be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Locals are progressively becoming westernized, especially those in their teens, twenties and thirties.  Victims of circumstance, not "bad people" as a whole.  The Parade grounds, tomb of the unknown soldier and ruins of the initial bombings of major Baath Party Buildings are well worth seeing.  Make sure to avoid places of congregated people and don't set patterns when driving.