Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Jerada, a Dead City with a Tower on Jebel Zawiya
Two kilometres from Ruweiha on Jebel Zawiya: a many-storey tower with its latrine still on the wall, 96 houses and a 5th-century church with rooms against its apse.
Idlib · Byzantine
The Sultan Ibrahim Hammam in Jableh
A Mamluk bath house in a corner of the Ibrahim ibn Adham mosque courtyard in Jableh: a renovation plaque dated 1607, a lantern dome, and what is known about access.
Latakia · Mamluk — Ottoman (renovated 1607)
Jebel Khalid, a Seleucid Town on the Euphrates
A Seleucid town on the Euphrates abandoned around 70 BC: a 3400-metre wall, a governor’s palace round a Doric courtyard, a temple. No later city covered it.
Aleppo · Hellenistic (Seleucid)
The Ancient Harbour of Jableh
The small half-moon harbour where old Jableh meets the sea: a 40-metre north quay, a stair with Crusader repairs and a rubble breakwater hidden under the water.
Latakia · Phoenician — Hellenistic — Roman — Crusader — Ottoman
Jabal al-Sayyida, Our Lady’s Hill in Mashta al-Helu
A small old church and a statue of Mary on a volcanic hill above Mashta al-Helu, near Tartus. On the night of 14 August each year, crowds climb it to pray.
Tartus · Historic chapel; construction date unknown
Burj Haidar: a 4th-Century Basilica in a Vegetable Garden
A small Jebel Sem’an village with four churches. The columns of its 4th-century West Basilica stand in a vegetable plot, and a hermit’s tower rises 11 metres nearby.
Aleppo · Byzantine
Burj al-Sabi, the Crusader Watchtower below Margat
A two-storey basalt tower by the coastal motorway, 2 km west of Margat Castle, built to guard its harbour. Arrow slits, repairs and a name with two stories.
Tartus · Crusader
Ba’uda, a Pyramid Tomb Village on Jebel Zawiya
Two kilometres west of Serjilla, in open fields: a 6th-century pyramid-roofed tomb, walls standing two storeys high and sarcophagi. Not the Ba’uda on Jebel Barisha.
Idlib · Byzantine
Ba’uda, a Dead City of Shops on Jebel Barisha
On Jebel Barisha above Bab al-Hawa, a market town of two-storey porticoed houses, shops below and homes above, and a church dated 392. Not the Jebel Zawiya one.
Idlib · Byzantine
Batuta, a Dead City on the Jebel Sem’an
A 4th-century hilltop village where the south arcade of the basilica still stands, each capital carved in a different order. A second church lies 100 metres off.
Aleppo · Byzantine
Barad (Brad): Dead City and the Church of Julianos
The largest ancient town of Jebel Sem’an: the Church of Julianos finished in 402, the oldest Roman bath in the area, and a tomb the Maronite Church links to Maron.
Aleppo · Roman — Byzantine
Banqusa, a Dead City of Early Churches
Two churches at the southern end of Jebel Barisha, one of which Butler counted among the region’s oldest and saw as the model for the carving at Qalb Lozeh.
Idlib · Byzantine
