One week in Syria: a day-by-day plan

You cannot see all of Syria in a week. What you can see is a line: two days in Damascus, one in the middle, two in the north, and the roads between them. The frame below is built on the route records on this site — each day is either a walk that is actually walked or a distance that is actually driven.

What this plan assumes

You arrive and leave through Damascus. Transport is on the road: a coach for the long runs, a minibus or shared taxi for short hops, a car with a driver for the sites outside the cities. Sleeping is concentrated in three places — Damascus, Homs and Aleppo — so the suitcase is not opened and closed every night. The one condition is an early start. Checkpoint waits cannot be predicted, and a day that begins in the evening is a day lost.

Days 1 and 2: Damascus

The first day stays inside the walls. The five-stop walk from Bab Sharqi to the Umayyad Mosque is 4 kilometres: six hours without stopping, a full day with. The second day takes the Ottoman face of the city: two markets, a merchant house, the Azm Palace and Khan As’ad Pasha, 1560 metres in all. The walking is short. The going inside is long.

Day 3: monasteries north, or Bosra south

Two separate day trips leave Damascus and both need a car. North are Saydnaya, Maaloula and Deir Mar Musa: 200 kilometres, a long day, and 350 steps at the end of it. South is Bosra: 140 kilometres, a Roman theatre in black basalt, a colonnaded street and a cathedral. The monastery day is tiring, Bosra is single-minded. Pick one.

Day 4: Homs and Krak des Chevaliers

Leave Damascus in the morning — 160 kilometres, two hours. Half a day is enough for Homs: the tell, the Church of Umm al-Zunnar and the Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque, 2470 metres of walking in all. In the afternoon go 65 kilometres west, to the castle at the mouth of the gap. The inner courtyard of Krak des Chevaliers is in shade after noon, and that is what sets the order. Sleep in Homs.

Day 5: Hama and Apamea

Homs to Hama is 50 kilometres. The morning goes to the norias and the Azm Palace on the Orontes; the wheels turn while the river runs high, which means spring. The afternoon goes northwest to the colonnaded street of Apamea — a car is needed, and the columns take the late light from the side. Sleep in Hama, or push on to Aleppo the same evening.

Days 6 and 7: Aleppo

Hama to Aleppo is 140 kilometres. The first day runs west from the citadel along the souq and ends at the Great Mosque, 1600 metres, all of it covered and shaded. The second day takes the gates and the museum: Bab Qinnasrin, Bab Antakya and the Aleppo National Museum. Fly out of Aleppo, or go back by road to Damascus — 350 kilometres, four to five hours.

Cutting it to five days

Drop two days: the day trip on day three, and Hama. What is left is two days in Damascus, one for Homs and Krak, two in Aleppo. What you lose is not scenery but slack. A five-day plan carries nothing spare; one closed museum or one long checkpoint queue moves the whole order.

Stretching it to ten days

Add three days on the coast. Aleppo to Latakia is 175 kilometres: the Bronze Age mound at Ugarit, mountain air at Kessab, the ditch cut into rock at Saladin Castle. Latakia to Tartus is 85 kilometres: Amrit, the boat to Arwad, and the tower at Safita inland. Tartus to Damascus is 250 kilometres. Leave the tenth day empty.

What this plan leaves out

Palmyra is not in it. It lies 250 kilometres from Damascus across desert, accommodation is thin, and there and back barely fits into a day; give it its own. The Dead Cities around Idlib are the same: 67 kilometres from Aleppo, but al-Bara, Serjilla and Qalb Lozeh need a full day and a car. The northeast and the eastern desert appear in no route on this site.