Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Halboun
A mountain village at 1450 metres, 27 kilometres northwest of Damascus: ancient Chalybon, Roman inscriptions, and a road in between two walls of rock. Free.
Damascus · Roman
Al-Tall
A town stepped between 900 and 1200 metres, 14 kilometres north of Damascus: the shrine of Sheikh Qasim and an old water channel cut into the rock. Free.
Damascus · —
Douma
The largest town in the Ghouta, 9 kilometres northeast of Damascus: more than 80 mosques, the Great Mosque at the centre, and the streets of the 1925 revolt.
Damascus · Aramaean — Ottoman
Jayrud
The Qalamoun stop on the Damascus to Palmyra road: Geroda under Rome, a nahiya centre under the Ottomans, 16 Roman miles from Dumayr, with a salt flat west of it.
Damascus · Roman — Ottoman
Assal al-Ward
A plateau town at 1850 metres, 55 kilometres north of Damascus: cherry and apple orchards, the Ras al-Nabi spring, and monastery remains on the slope. Free.
Damascus · —
Nahr Yazid
The uppermost left branch of the Barada, cut in the Umayyad period to water a wider stretch of ground. This is why the Salihiyya quarter is where it is.
Damascus · Umayyad
Yusuf al-Azma Square
The administrative centre of modern Damascus. The statue at its middle is Yusuf al-Azma, the war minister killed at Maysalun in 1920 fighting the French.
Damascus · Republican era, rebuilt in 2007
Nahr Thawra
The branch that leaves the Barada at the West Sadirvan. It threads Salihiyya, Souq Sarouja, Amara and Qassaa onto a single line of water, then reaches Adra.
Damascus · Part of the Barada distribution network, pre-Islamic in origin
Hammam al-Ward
A Mamluk bath house behind the Barsbay Mosque in Souq Sarouja. Its founder is given as the emir who named the quarter; its state has to be asked locally.
Damascus · Mamluk
Tishreen Park
The largest park in Damascus, over 100 hectares. It was laid out in 1969 over the Kiwan gardens; officially Umayyads Park, still Tishreen to the city.
Damascus · Modern Damascus
The Al-Tawusiyya Mosque
A Mamluk facade on Port Said Street looking over Bahsa: the tall doorway, its muqarnas, a sabil and a niched tomb dome, left from a khanqah founded in 1382.
Damascus · Mamluk
The Mosque and Mausoleum of Amir Tanbak
A mosque and tomb built on the Midan street in 1394 for Tanbak al-Hasani, governor of Damascus: two domes, four medallions, a restored striped facade.
Damascus · Mamluk
