Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
The Deir ez-Zor Suspension Bridge
The 450-metre footbridge that joined the banks of the Euphrates from 1931 to 2013. Four piers and snapped cables remain: what you can see, and what is not known.
Deir ez-Zor · French Mandate · destroyed in 2013
Deir Mar Touma: a Roman Temple Turned Church above Saidnaya
A small monastery 2 km north of Saidnaya at 1500 metres, set in a Roman temple or tomb that became a church around the 5th century, with rock-cut basins nearby.
Damascus · Roman — converted into a church in the 5th century
The Monastery of the Vision of Saint Paul, Kawkab
On a basalt hill 18 km southwest of Damascus, tradition places Paul’s fall to the ground on the road to Damascus. The present monastery was built in 1962.
Damascus · Modern building of 1962; traces from the early Christian and Crusader periods
Deir Atiyah Museum
A museum spread over rough-stone buildings on a hill above Deir Atiyah: a Palmyrene altar, a Byzantine lintel dated 509, and weapons from the 18th century on.
Nebek · Founded 1982; collection from the Hellenistic period to the 20th century
Jebel Bishri
The ridge running from Deir ez-Zor towards Palmyra, west of the Euphrates: mountain of the Amorites in Akkadian texts. Rich in archaeology, but not safe to visit.
Deir ez-Zor · Palaeolithic to present; the Amorites in the Bronze Age
Qasr Says, the Umayyad Palace at Jabal Says
An Umayyad desert palace built by al-Walid I in 705-715 beside an extinct volcano 100 km southeast of Damascus, with a Ghassanid rock inscription from 528.
Damascus · Umayyad
The Balikh River, Syria
The Balikh, the Euphrates’ second-largest tributary in Syria, runs from the Ain al-Arous spring to Raqqa: its tributaries, mounds, excavations and where to see it.
Raqqa · Natural; settlement along its banks from the Late Neolithic to the Abbasid period
The Awaj River
Rising on the eastern flank of Mount Hermon, the Awaj runs 70 km past the south of Damascus to Lake Hijaneh. Usually taken as the biblical Pharpar; where to see it.
Damascus · Natural; named as the Pharpar in the Bible
Jabal Zayn al-Abidin and Its Shrine
A 620-metre hill 5 km north of Hama topped by a small shrine to Zayn al-Abidin. Medieval geographers paired it with Jabal Kafra as the ‘horns of Hama’.
Hama · Qurun Hama in medieval sources; date of the shrine unknown
Qasr al-Zahrawi, Homs
A Mamluk mansion in Homs dated 1262-1263, later the city’s folklore museum. A shell-vaulted iwan fills one side of the courtyard, with two carved lions facing it.
Homs · Mamluk, with Ottoman additions
Dhakir: A Basalt Village of the Hauran
A basalt village on the eastern edge of the Lajat, with stone doors, roofs of basalt slabs, towers and cisterns. Pieces of a Roman temple sit in its house walls.
As-Suwayda · Nabataean — Roman — Byzantine
Wadi al-Uyun, Waterfalls near Masyaf
A hill town near Masyaf in Syria’s coastal mountains, known for waterfalls you can step into and moss-covered rocks, with a plane tree over 400 years old nearby.
Hama · Settlement recorded from the 13th century
