Half a day in Damascus: the museum, the Takiyya and the Hejaz station

Three stops at the west end of Damascus, 800 metres in all. You are outside the old city here. What you see is how the city has looked at itself over the last two centuries: a museum founded in 1919, a courtyard by Sinan, and the station where the pilgrimage road changed from camel to train. The three are less than ten minutes apart. The hard part is not the distance but finding all three open on the same day.

The route

Start at the National Museum of Damascus, on Shukri al-Quwatli Street, where the garden opens onto the road and the door sits well back. Leave the museum to the northeast: the Takiyya al-Sulaymaniyya is 360 metres on, four minutes, on the same block and on the bank of the Barada. Look for the pair of minarets, thin as pencils; there is nothing else like them in Damascus. From the Takiyya go down to the southeast: the Hejaz station is 380 metres on, five minutes, on Hejaz square. Carry on from there and Marjeh square is five minutes away, and from Marjeh you can walk into the Hamidiyah souk.

Timing

Be in the museum garden at 09:00. The door is already the first exhibit: the facade of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, dated 727, was lifted out of the desert and rebuilt here. An hour and a half inside is enough. Move to the Takiyya at 10:30; there are mother-of-pearl and brocade workshops in the courtyard and the craftsmen are at their benches before noon. Walk to the station at 11:45. The hall has a carved wooden ceiling, a wooden screen runs around the upper gallery, and coloured glass shifts the colour inside through the day; towards midday the light is at its highest and the colour at its clearest. Leave at 12:15. You can give the afternoon to the old city, to the east.

Take care

The museum closed in 2012, most of its sections opened again in 2018, and it was closed once more in 2024; the situation changes within the year. Ask before setting out. If it is shut the route still works: start at the Takiyya, go down to the station, and give the rest of the time to Marjeh square. The Takiyya is a working mosque — cover shoulders and knees, women need a headscarf, and keep the courtyard quiet at prayer times. No train leaves the station; the platforms have been closed since 1917 and people come here to look at the building. All three stops are in the centre and there is little shade, so the street heats up on summer middays. Entrance fees change, so carry cash.