Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Resafa (Sergiopolis)
A walled Byzantine pilgrimage city standing alone in the steppe south-west of Raqqa: church facades, vast underground cisterns and a carved north gate.
Raqqa · Roman — Byzantine — Umayyad
Al-Rastan (Arethusa)
A black basalt town above the deep gorge the Orontes has cut midway between Homs and Hama: the site of ancient Arethusa, the old bridge and the reservoir.
Homs · Seleucid — Roman — Ottoman
The Uthmaniyya Madrasa
A large Ottoman complex just beyond Bab al-Nasr, built between 1730 and 1738. Its courtyard is ringed by 42 student rooms, and its minaret is cylindrical.
Aleppo · Ottoman
Al-Nuqtah Mosque (Mashhad al-Husayn), Aleppo
A Shia shrine on Aleppo’s Jabal Jawshan, the Mashhad al-Husayn of the sources. Its Ayyubid portal was shattered in the 1920 munitions blast and later rebuilt.
Aleppo · Zengid and Ayyubid; rebuilt in the seventies
Muzayrib
The first great halt of the hajj caravan out of Damascus: the remains of a basalt fort, a lake fed by springs, and the end of the narrow-gauge line of 1894.
Daraa · Ottoman
Al-Muallaq Mosque
A Mamluk mosque of 1458 on the bank of the Barada: banded black-and-white stone, a stair up to the door, and a minaret rebuilt Cairo-style after lightning.
Damascus · Mamluk
Al-Midan Quarter
The southern gate of Damascus: the long street where the Hajj caravan set out and Hauran grain came in. A quarter of grain merchants and the city’s sweet makers.
Damascus · Mamluk — Ottoman
The Great Mosque of Maarat al-Numan
A 12th-century Ayyubid mosque: a square minaret, six domes over the prayer hall, a columned water tank in the court. Hit in 2016, repairs announced in 2025.
Idlib · Ayyubid — the dynasty Saladin founded
Qirqbize
A small Dead City a kilometre north of Qalb Lozeh, holding the oldest house church preserved anywhere after Dura-Europos, set inside a Roman dwelling.
Idlib · Roman — Byzantine
Areimeh Castle
A Crusader castle on a rock plateau above the Akkar plain, built to signal between Safita and Tripoli: two watchtowers, vaulted halls and a broken wall.
Tartus · Byzantine — Crusader — Mamluk
Aleika Castle
An Ismaili castle on a ridge above al-Ulayqa village in the coastal mountains: two concentric walls, and one of only two rebuilt after Baybars took them.
Tartus · Ismaili — Mamluk
Qadam Railway Station
The basalt Hejaz railway station on the southern edge of Damascus. Its workshops made it the city’s working rail hub, and it was badly damaged in 2013.
Damascus · Ottoman — Hejaz railway
