Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Manbij (Hierapolis Bambyce)
Manbij stands 30 kilometres west of the Euphrates and was once Hierapolis. Where the name comes from, the sacred pools Lucian described, and the town now.
Aleppo · Aramaean — Hellenistic — Roman
Mar Assia al-Hakim Church, Aleppo
The Syriac Catholic church of Jdeideh, rebuilt in 1500 and in use ever since. It was a patriarchal seat, took its present name in 1970, and runs 32 metres.
Aleppo · Post-Mamluk to Ottoman
Maqam Ibrahim in Al-Salihin, Aleppo
A shrine inside the Al-Salihin cemetery. Aleppo’s south gate takes its name from it, and what you come for is the place and a stone, not the building.
Aleppo · Seljuk — Zengid — Ayyubid
The Al-Maqamat Mosque
A Mamluk complex of 703/1302 in the Maqamat quarter outside Bab al-Maqam: prayer hall, tomb chambers and a fountain around one court. Entry is free of charge.
Aleppo · Mamluk
The Queiq River
The river of Aleppo runs 129 kilometres and never reaches the sea. The water that explains why the city stands here now runs at the bottom of a concrete channel.
Aleppo
The Holy Saviour and Saint Barbara Church, Aleppo
An Armenian Catholic church in Sulaymaniyah. A Jesuit chapel stood here first; the present building went up in 1937 and gained its stone front in 1943.
Aleppo · French Mandate
The Al-Kiltawiyya, Aleppo
The hill above Bab al-Hadid takes its name from a Mamluk college. The endowment came apart and the building went with it; a new school opened here in 1964.
Aleppo · Mamluk — modern
The Al-Karimiyya Mosque
A small mosque just inside Bab Qinnasrin, opposite the Jawhari bath house. A yellow stone in its south wall carries a footprint local belief ties to the Prophet.
Aleppo · Umayyad origin; Ayyubid repair, Mamluk minaret
The Qastal al-Harami Mosque
A Mamluk mosque of 865/1461, one kilometre north of the Aleppo Citadel. Tomb, quarter fountain, minaret and mihrab sit in one building, and entry is free.
Aleppo · Mamluk
The Al-Kamiliyya Madrasa, Aleppo
An Ayyubid madrasa 300 metres from Bab al-Maqam, east of the Al-Zahiriyya. Its portal has a panel cut and framed for an inscription that was never carved.
Aleppo · Ayyubid — the dynasty Saladin founded
The Mausoleum of Khayr Bak, Aleppo
A Mamluk tomb 100 metres south of Bab al-Maqam. The last Mamluk governor of Aleppo built it for himself in 1514 and was never once laid to rest in it.
Aleppo · Mamluk — the sultanate that ruled from Cairo
Souq al-Hiraj
Once the firewood and charcoal market of Aleppo, this covered lane now has 33 shops dealing mostly in rugs and carpets. The trade changed and the name stayed.
Aleppo · Mamluk to Ottoman
