Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Azm Palace, Hama
The governor’s mansion the Azm family built in Hama before moving to Damascus. Courtyard, iwan and painted ceilings — an 18th-century Syrian house entire.
Hama · Ottoman — 18th century
Deir Mar Musa
A monastery set on rock in a desert valley above Nebek. Layers of fresco from the 11th and 12th centuries cover the walls of its small church inside.
Damascus · Medieval — frescoes 11th–12th century
Bab Touma
The northeastern gate of old Damascus, and the name of the Christian quarter behind it. One of the seven Roman gates, standing in its Ayyubid rebuild.
Damascus · Roman foundation — Ayyubid structure
Apamea
A Hellenistic city on a plateau above the Orontes northwest of Hama. Its colonnaded street runs nearly two kilometres, lined with twisted fluted columns.
Hama · Hellenistic foundation — Roman street
Homs Citadel
An artificial mound southwest of the old city, rising 32 metres above the plain. No castle stands; what is here is stone-clad slope, wall stubs and deep layers.
Homs · Ayyubid to Ottoman, mound from the 3rd millennium BC
Bab Qinnasrin
The southern gate of Aleppo’s old city, 1 kilometre from the Great Mosque. What stands is from 1256; the first gate was built in 964 and its doors came from Amorium.
Aleppo · Hamdanid foundation, Ayyubid rebuilding
Bab Kisan
The southeast gate of Old Damascus, Saturn’s gate in the Roman wall. Since 1939 the gate itself is the front of a church. How to find it and what to see.
Damascus · Roman · Mamluk rebuilding · 18th century
The Chapel of Saint Ananias
A two-room underground chapel in the Christian quarter of Damascus, 5-6 metres below street level, held to be where Paul was baptised. How to find it, what to see.
Damascus · Early Christian · Byzantine foundations
Souq Midhat Pasha
The covered western stretch of Straight Street, named after the Ottoman governor who rebuilt it in 1878. Cloth and abaya stalls on top of the Roman road.
Damascus · Ottoman market over the Roman road, 1878
The Mariamite Cathedral
The seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, in the Christian quarter of Damascus. Handed back in 706 in exchange for the Umayyad Mosque. Free entry.
Damascus · Early foundations · present building after 1860
Church of the Holy Belt
A Syriac Orthodox church in old Homs. It is named after the belt it keeps, and the low-ceilinged room below ground is the oldest part. Notes on visiting it.
Homs · Early foundations with later layers
Kessab
A mountain town in pine forest north of Latakia, 800 metres up. Where people go to escape the coastal heat, and a place set apart by its Armenian past.
Latakia · —
