Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Salkhad Castle
An Ayyubid castle on the cone of an extinct volcano, a six-sided minaret in the square below. What to see at Salkhad, how long the climb takes, how to get there.
As-Suwayda · Ayyubid
Shahba (Philippopolis)
The city a Roman emperor built on the village where he was born, left unfinished when he died. What to see at Shahba, how long it takes, what it is like now.
As-Suwayda · Roman
The Shaghur Quarter
The southern quarter of old Damascus: overhanging houses one lane off the tourist route, a working market street, and the memory of the 1925 revolt in Syria.
Damascus · Mamluk — Ottoman
The Baghdad Gate
A brick gate standing on its own at the south-east end of Raqqa’s wall. Its broken arch, its two-tier frieze of niches, and the chance its name is wrong.
Raqqa · On the Abbasid wall line; the structure itself probably 11th–12th century
The Raqqa Museum
The regional museum, housed in an Ottoman government building of 1861. What happened to its collection, what is left of it, and what to ask before you go.
Raqqa · Building 1861 · museum founded 1981
The Great Mosque of Raqqa
A first in mosque architecture: the earliest mosque built from scratch to one coherent plan. Its brick minaret and a row of eleven arches still stand in Raqqa.
Raqqa · Abbasid — Zengid restoration in 1165
Mari
A mud-brick mound at Tell Hariri and 25,000 cuneiform tablets. The Euphrates city of the 3rd millennium BC, how it was dug, and the state of the site today.
Deir ez-Zor · Early Bronze Age — Shakkanakku — Amorite Lim dynasty
The Qaymariyya Quarter
The lived-in quarter east of the Umayyad Mosque: narrow lanes under vines, closed wooden doors and the courtyards behind them. A place to wander, not to tick off.
Damascus · Ayyubid — Ottoman
Qasr al-Banat
A 12th-century house wedged among apartment blocks in the middle of Raqqa. Its vaulted halls, its plan borrowed from Iran, and one original stucco wall.
Raqqa · Zengid — about 1168
Qanawat (Canatha)
The Decapolis city up in the hills: a rock-cut theatre, a colonnaded temple and a palace turned basilica. What stands at Qanawat and how long it takes.
As-Suwayda · Roman — Byzantine
The Khusrawiyya Mosque, Aleppo
A complex of 1546 south-west of the citadel, designed by the Ottoman architect Sinan. It was destroyed in August 2014; this page says what stood here.
Aleppo · Ottoman
The Al-Iman Mosque
A large neighbourhood mosque in the Mazraa district of Damascus, known for its teaching circles — and for the bombing that struck one of them in 2013.
Damascus · Modern