Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Bani Qahtan Castle
A ruined castle in the coastal mountains 40 kilometres east of Latakia. The outer wall still runs; the inside is now a village. No signs, no ticket gate.
Latakia · Byzantine — Crusader — Ayyubid
Khanasir, ancient Anasartha
A town on the steppe road southeast of Aleppo. The stones of Byzantine Anasartha sit inside today’s walls: Greek inscriptions over doors, carved crosses.
Aleppo · Roman — Byzantine — Umayyad
The Holy Trinity Church, Aleppo
An Armenian Catholic church in the Midan quarter of Aleppo, built on the round plan of Zvartnots in Armenia. Consecrated in 1965, with a school in its yard.
Aleppo · 20th century
The Al-Adiliyah Mosque
An Ottoman mosque south-west of the Aleppo Citadel, endowed in 1556. Its Iznik tile panels, its double portico, and the damage it took in the 2014-2015 fighting.
Aleppo · Ottoman
Halabiye
A walled city in the gorge where the Euphrates narrows, named in antiquity after Zenobia of Palmyra. Its walls, praetorium and two churches are largely intact.
Deir ez-Zor · Palmyrene — Roman — Byzantine
The Farafra Quarter
The old quarter northwest of the Aleppo citadel: stone-paved lanes two metres wide, a khanqah from 1237, madrasas and courtyards now used as workshops.
Aleppo · Ayyubid — Ottoman
The Khanqah al-Farafira
A Sufi lodge north of the Aleppo Citadel, built in 1237 by Dayfa Khatun, the regent of the city. Its muqarnas portal, bent entrance and mihrab survive.
Aleppo · Ayyubid
The Church of St George at Izra
Built in 515 and never closed since: the oldest working church in Syria stands at Izra, north of Daraa. How to get there, what to look at, when to walk in.
Daraa · Byzantine
Dura-Europos
A frontier city on a bluff 90 metres above the Euphrates, known for its synagogue, its house church and its siege tunnels. It was looted heavily after 2011.
Deir ez-Zor · Seleucid — Parthian — Roman
The Deir ez-Zor Museum
The museum of Upper Mesopotamia: the Mari tablets, whole buildings rebuilt at full scale, and the finds from the mounds along the Euphrates and the Khabur.
Deir ez-Zor · Building 1996 · museum founded 1974
The Hejaz Railway Station at Daraa
The junction where the line to Medina met the branch to Haifa. What is there now, whether anything runs, where the revival plans stand, and where the rails go.
Daraa · Ottoman
The Mosque of Omar in Daraa
The oldest building still standing in Daraa, in the middle of the old town. How to reach it, what carries its roof, and what happened to its minaret in 2013.
Daraa · Early Islamic, with Ottoman and later repairs