Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
The Latin Church of Latakia
Latakia’s Franciscan church, with two Gothic-style towers facing the port on Baghdad Street. Consecrated in 1933, it is the largest monastery in the city.
Latakia · Ottoman (old church 1829) — French Mandate (present building 1933)
The Al-Mina Mosque at Latakia Harbour
A harbour mosque built in 1748 by a Tunisian captain: prayer hall upstairs, three storerooms below, entrance through the minaret’s base. Damaged in 2023.
Latakia · Ottoman
The Qubba Mosque (Al-Duha Mosque), Latakia
A tiny mosque in Latakia’s old Saliba quarter, beside the Colonnade of Bacchus: a Crusader chapel, a school from 1188, a mosque from 1710. Two cross windows remain.
Latakia · Crusader — Ayyubid — Ottoman
The Al-Jadid Mosque in Latakia
The Azm family’s mosque in Latakia, built in 1727: nine domes on basalt columns with Roman capitals, and two doorways angled to mark the noon prayer by shadow.
Latakia · Ottoman
The Armenian Church of the Holy Virgin, Latakia
Latakia’s old Armenian Orthodox church, with the date 1254 carved in Armenian above its main door. For centuries it was a monastery of the Jerusalem Patriarchate.
Latakia · Inscription 1254; repairs 1721, 1845, 1874
Barish al-Shamali, a Dead Village near Qalb Lozeh
Two kilometres north of Qalb Lozeh: a two-storey public building dated 231 by its inscription, and a three-aisled church of around 600 with its bema still in place.
Idlib · Roman — Byzantine
Ksejbe, a Hilltop Dead City on Jebel Barisha
At the north-east tip of Jebel Barisha, above the Sarmada plain, a church dated 414: its south front stands with two carved doorways, and no two capitals match.
Idlib · Byzantine
Qinnasrin, Ancient Chalcis near Aleppo
Founded by Seleucus I as Chalcis, later capital of the Jund Qinnasrin, 25 km south-west of Aleppo. Where exactly it stood is still argued: al-Hadir or al-Iss?
Aleppo · Hellenistic — Ayyubid
Kfeir, a Deserted Village near Qalb Lozeh
On Jebel al-A’la, about two kilometres from Qalb Lozeh: an empty village with a near-intact chapel and its richly carved arch, old houses and an underground press.
Idlib · Late Roman — Byzantine
Kafr Nabo, a Village Named for the God Nabu
A Jebel Sem’an village where a press inscribed in 224 honours three local gods and the temple became a church in 398. Door frames and an inn still stand on the hill.
Aleppo · Roman — Byzantine
Holy Mother of God Armenian Church, Kessab
The Armenian Apostolic church in central Kessab: 18th-century walls, bell towers from 1903 and the 1970s, and a marble khachkar in the courtyard since 2009.
Latakia · Ottoman (18th century) — bell towers 1903 and 1970s
Kafartab, a Medieval Town near Khan Shaykhun
Kafartab, 4 km north-west of Khan Shaykhun, was the Banu Munqidh base before Shayzar. The Crusaders called it Capharda; the 1157 earthquake all but destroyed it.
Idlib · Abbasid — Mamluk