Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Fulus Mosque, Damascus
A small 11th-century mosque in the Midan quarter of Damascus, south of the old walled city. What it is known for is the Fatimid floral stucco on its mihrab.
Damascus · Fatimid
Burqush
A hilltop 30 kilometres west of Damascus at 1580 metres: a 6th-century basilica raised on a Roman temple podium, with rock-cut rooms and tombs all around it.
Damascus · Roman — Byzantine
Bab al-Nasr
The northern gate of the Old City of Aleppo. Az-Zahir Ghazi pulled it down and rebuilt it in 1212; damaged in the war, it was repaired by a local committee in 2018.
Aleppo · Ayyubid, with Ottoman additions
Bab al-Maqam
The southern gate of Aleppo. Rebuilt by az-Zahir Ghazi and finished by his son al-Aziz, it was raised not for defence but for the road to the shrine of Abraham.
Aleppo · Ayyubid
Bab al-Hadid
The best preserved of Aleppo’s gates. The last Mamluk sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri rebuilt it in 1509, and the blacksmiths around it are still at the same trade.
Aleppo · Ayyubid foundations, Mamluk rebuilding
The Roman Temples of Atil
Two almost identical Roman temples inside a Druze village north of Suwayda. The southern one still carries its carving; an inscription dates it to 151.
As-Suwayda · Roman
The Aqsab Mosque
An Ayyubid mosque in Suq Saruja, just outside Bab al-Salam in Damascus. Its banded stone minaret carries a sundial, and a mausoleum stands in the court.
Damascus · Ayyubid, restored under the Mamluks
The Hammam al-Malik al-Zahir
One of the oldest working bathhouses in Damascus, built in 985 beside the Zahiriyya Madrasa. Come for the domed cold room and its inlaid marble basin.
Damascus · Fatimid, later Mamluk
The Yalbugha Mosque at Marjeh Square
The mosque on the north side of Marjeh Square. The Mamluk building that stood here was pulled down in 1974; the larger mosque now on the site opened in 2014.
Damascus · Mamluk — modern
The Cathedral of Saints Constantine and Helen
A temple turned church in the middle of Yabroud. The big blocks in its outer wall predate the conversion of 326, and 35 icons line the screen inside it.
Nebek · Aramaean temple — a church from 326 by tradition
The Al-Tawba Mosque
The Ayyubid mosque in the Uqaybah quarter of Damascus. A scaled-down Umayyad plan, a black-and-white courtyard, and the khan that gave the mosque its name.
Damascus · Ayyubid — with Mamluk repairs
The Al-Tawrizi Mosque
A Mamluk mosque outside the walls at Qabr Atika. Built in 1420, its minaret added in 1430 as a separate mass, with tiled walls and a muqarnas domed tomb.
Damascus · Mamluk, the sultanate that ruled Syria and Egypt from the 13th century