Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
The Al-Daqqaq Mosque
A Mamluk mosque of 1318 on the east side of Midan Street, Damascus. Founded by the judge Karim al-Din; its zigzag paving and domed portico still stand.
Damascus · Mamluk
The Al-Dabbagha Mosque
A small mosque in Aleppo’s old tanners’ quarter. Its minaret dates from the early 13th century, counts among the city’s finest, and awaits repair still.
Aleppo · Seljuk — Ayyubid
Mount Abdulaziz
The only high ground in north-east Syria: a ridge 85 kilometres long, topping out at 932 metres, with a nature reserve and twenty villages at its foot.
Hasakah · —
The Church of the Olive: Melkite Cathedral of Damascus
The Melkite Greek Catholic cathedral a short walk inside Bab Sharqi. Olive trees in its courtyard gave it the name; the ablaq portal stands on a lane.
Damascus · 18th century — modern repairs
Zalabiye
The sister fortress on the left bank of the Euphrates, facing Halabiye. Its east wall still stands with eight towers; the river and the railway took the rest.
Deir ez-Zor · Palmyrene — Byzantine
Tell Sheikh Hamad (Dur-Katlimmu)
An Assyrian provincial capital on the lower Khabur: the conserved mudbrick Red House, and cuneiform tablets written after Nineveh itself had already fallen.
Deir ez-Zor · Mitanni — Assyrian
The Sultaniyya Madrasa
An Ayyubid complex facing the entrance of the Aleppo Citadel: a madrasa, a mosque and the tomb of al-Malik al-Zahir Ghazi, the son of Saladin, in one court.
Aleppo · Ayyubid
The Al-Shu’aybiyya Mosque
A facade standing just inside the Antioch Gate. Built by Nur al-Din in 1150 on the site of Aleppo’s first mosque, crowned by a classical stone cornice.
Aleppo · Zengid
The Sinaniyya Souq
The first covered market of Damascus. A 105-metre line laid out by the governor Sinan Pasha in 1590, today a street of broom, sieve and censer makers.
Damascus · Ottoman
The Great Mosque of Sarmin
A 13th-century mosque in Sarmin, east of Idlib, with nine domes over its prayer hall and an octagonal minaret. Shelling on 4 October 2023 brought much of it down.
Idlib · Mamluk
The Sanjakdar Mosque
Built in 1348 by the Mamluk governor Arghun Shah. Its original stone front and muqarnas portal make it one of the least altered Mamluk buildings in Damascus.
Damascus · Mamluk
The Al-Sahibiyah Mosque
A Mamluk mosque and madrasa facing the Khan al-Wazir. Built in 1350 by a Mamluk officer, with a muqarnas north portal and inscriptions along its west wall.
Aleppo · Mamluk
