Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Al-Otrush Mosque, Aleppo
The Mamluk mosque south of the Citadel, begun in 1393 and finished in 1408. Aleppo’s most heavily carved facade and its muqarnas portal both stand here.
Aleppo · Mamluk (the Cairo-based sultanate that ruled Syria until 1516)
The Nur al-Din Madrasa
The madrasa Nur al-Din Zengi founded in 1172, and the tomb where he lies. Inside the tailors’ souq, known for its pointed muqarnas dome and courtyard pool.
Damascus · Zengid, the dynasty that ruled Syria before Saladin
Nebi Huri Mosque and Tower Tomb
A hexagonal Roman tower tomb at the Cyrrhus site near Afrin: turned into a shrine in 1303, given a mosque beside it in 1314, and rebuilt after damage in 2020.
Aleppo · Roman — Mamluk — Ottoman
The Nabi Habeel Mosque: the Tomb of Abel
A shrine in the mountains north-west of Damascus, above the Barada valley. Held to be the tomb of Abel; the 1599 building holds a 7-metre sarcophagus.
Damascus · Ottoman
The Al-Naqshabandi Mosque
Murad Pasha, governor of Damascus, built this Ottoman mosque in 1568: banded black-and-white walls, domed cells around the courtyard, a hexagonal minaret.
Damascus · Ottoman
The Basilica of Mushabbak
The most complete church in the Dead Cities. No village ever grew around it: it is read as a staging post for pilgrims walking from Aleppo to Saint Simeon.
Aleppo · Byzantine
The Al-Muqaddamiyah Madrasa
The oldest madrasa in Aleppo: a church, a mosque from 1124, a madrasa from 1168. Its door lintel carries what sources call the earliest naskhi inscription.
Aleppo · Zangid
Mhardeh
A Greek Orthodox town on the Orontes, 23 kilometres north-west of Hama: its old multi-arched stone bridge, and Shayzar castle two kilometres to the west.
Hama · Byzantine — Ottoman
Minet el-Beida, the Harbour of Ugarit
A small bay 10 kilometres north of Latakia. In the Bronze Age it was the harbour and the cemetery of Ugarit; today the shore is military and closed off.
Latakia · Bronze Age — Ugarit
The Mahmandar Mosque
A Mamluk mosque of 1303, some 400 metres north-west of the Aleppo Citadel. Its name is Persian for the officer who met envoys; its minaret carries a zigzag band.
Aleppo · Mamluk
The Roman Arch of Latakia
A Roman arch in the middle of Latakia that opens on all four sides. It stands about two metres below street level, inside a small public garden in Slaibeh.
Latakia · Roman
The Forty Martyrs Cathedral, Aleppo
The Armenian cathedral in Jdeideh, its present building completed in 1491. One of the oldest working churches of the diaspora, with a baroque belfry of 1912.
Aleppo · Mamluk to Ottoman
