Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
The Mosque of Fatima in Bosra
A small Ayyubid mosque beside Bosra’s cathedral, with a minaret dated 1306: a basalt-slab roof in the Hauran manner, a two-phase plan and reused stones.
Bosra · Ayyubid — Mamluk
Burj al-Arab, a Crusader Tower near Talkalakh
A basalt tower the Crusaders built in the early 12th century in Burj al-Arab, west of Homs near the Lebanese border. Baibars took it in 1271; it is partly ruined.
Homs · Crusader — Mamluk
Birket al-Hajj, the Pilgrims’ Pool of Bosra
The great reservoir that watered Bosra’s pilgrim caravans: stone walls nearly 150 metres long, an Ayyubid repair, a madrasa on its edge and the 2018 flood.
Bosra · Nabataean — Roman — Ayyubid
Jabal al-Bilas Nature Reserve
A 22797 ha steppe reserve between Salamiyah and Palmyra, with old Atlantic pistachio trees, wolves and hyenas. Landmines are a known risk; check conditions first.
Hama · Natural area; Roman boundary stone
Bab al-Qandil, the Central Arch of Bosra
The three-bay Roman arch everyone walks through between the theatre and the colonnaded street: street, portico and theatre approach read in one structure.
Bosra · Roman — Byzantine
Bab al-Hawa, the West Gate of Bosra
The single-bay Roman gate where Bosra’s main street meets the west wall: a heavy facade like the gates of Shahba, older wall layers and a 1955-1968 restoration.
Bosra · Roman
The Al-A’la Plateau: Byzantine Villages East of Hama
Basalt villages between Hama and Salamiyah with Greek-inscribed lintels, watchtowers and a church dated 582 at Tuba. A 6th-century countryside you can still read.
Hama · Byzantine — 6th century
Ariqa Cave: A Lava Tube in al-Lajat
A lava tube entered from a pit in the middle of Ariqa village, 24 km north of As-Suwayda: three sections, 17 degrees all year, formed some 450,000 years ago.
As-Suwayda · Volcanic formation, about 450,000 years ago
Al-Yacoubiyah, an Armenian and Catholic Village in Idlib
Al-Yacoubiyah, high above the Orontes valley in Idlib, has two Armenian churches and a Catholic one, on a wooded slope at 480 m next to Franciscan Al-Quniyah.
Idlib · Medieval Armenian settlement; churches 19th–20th century
Umm al-Tuyour Coastal Reserve, North of Latakia
A 12-kilometre shore 30 kilometres north of Latakia, protected for migrating birds: sand and a village in the south, rocky coast running north to Ras al-Bassit.
Latakia · Coastal forest reserve
Tell Sukas, the Harbour Mound South of Jableh
A mound on a headland 6 km south of Jableh: layers from a Neolithic village to a Phoenician and Greek port and a Crusader fort, plus a tablet in Ugaritic script.
Latakia · Neolithic — Bronze Age — Phoenician and Greek — Byzantine — Crusader
Tell Kazel, the Ancient City of Sumur
A mound rising 25 metres above the Akkar plain south of Tartus: Sumur of the Amarna letters. What was found, where the finds are and what to know before you go.
Tartus · Bronze Age — Iron Age — Persian — Hellenistic