Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
24 Places
The Phoenician Walls of Arwad Island
Giant stone blocks facing the open sea on Arwad’s west shore: what an 1853 survey measured, the rock-cut ditch, and what can still be seen of the wall today.
Tartus · Phoenician (exact date unknown)
The Walls of al-Rafiqa, Raqqa
Of the horseshoe wall al-Mansur built for al-Rafiqa in 772, 2660 metres still stand: brick-faced mudbrick, towers, the north gate, and where to start walking it.
Raqqa · Abbasid (772; brick facing under Harun al-Rashid)
The Nabataean Arch in Bosra
The 1st-century arch that closes Bosra’s main street at its east end: Petra-style capitals, the sanctuary-gateway theory, and what stands of it today.
Bosra · Nabataean
The New Clock Tower of Homs
The clock tower seen as the symbol of Homs, funded in 1951 by the emigrant Karjieh Haddad: a black-and-white stone shaft with four clock faces over Clock Square.
Homs · Mid-20th century
The Walls and Gates of Homs
Only a short stretch of the Homs city wall survives, with two towers on its east side. The seven Abbasid-era gates live on as quarter names such as Bab Tadmur.
Homs · Ayyubid (with far older origins)
The Old Clock of Homs
A public clock put up in Homs in 1923, still engraved with the name of its maker, Abdullah Kishi. It stands where Hamidiyah Street begins; reinstalled in 2022.
Homs · French Mandate
Bab al-Qandil, the Central Arch of Bosra
The three-bay Roman arch everyone walks through between the theatre and the colonnaded street: street, portico and theatre approach read in one structure.
Bosra · Roman — Byzantine
Bab al-Hawa, the West Gate of Bosra
The single-bay Roman gate where Bosra’s main street meets the west wall: a heavy facade like the gates of Shahba, older wall layers and a 1955-1968 restoration.
Bosra · Roman
Bab al-Jinan, the Gate of Gardens
One of the western gates of Aleppo, named for the gardens along the Queiq. The gate was pulled down around 1900, and a souq now carries its name on the spot.
Aleppo · Hamdanid — demolished around 1900
The Walls of Damascus
The wall around the old city encloses some 100 hectares. Its courses read period by period: reused blocks below, Nur al-Din above, Ottoman at the top.
Damascus · Roman — Zangid — Ayyubid — Mamluk — Ottoman
Bab al-Faraj
The eighth gate of the Damascus wall, and the only one opened from scratch after the Islamic conquest. Nur al-Din built it; the Ayyubids made it double.
Damascus · Zangid — Ayyubid — Mamluk
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
