Cities
Cities and destinations across every province. For each: today’s status, sights, restaurants and cafes, parks, and a photo gallery.
Damascus
Narrow lanes, wooden doors and covered souqs. A city best read on foot, slowly.
Aleppo
A city of kitchens and caravanserais. Parts of the old city are still under restoration; we date the state of each site.
Latakia
Sea, corniche and nearby mountains. A base for coastal and mountain villages.
Bloudan
A mountain resort near Damascus: cool summers, snowy winters, next to Zabadani's orchards.
Homs
Halfway between Damascus and Aleppo, and the gateway to Krak des Chevaliers and Palmyra.
Hama
Wooden waterwheels turning on the Orontes for centuries; you hear them before you see them.
Tartus
A calm sea town with Arwad island in front and mountain villages behind.
Idlib
Wide olive plains and Byzantine stone villages abandoned for centuries.
Daraa
The wide Hauran plain and its black stone, home to Bosra and its Roman theatre.
Suwayda
A mountain of black stone and vineyards, with Roman towns still lived in.
Quneitra
Green plains below Mount Hermon, and an old city left in ruins as a witness to 1973.
Palmyra
A palm oasis in the desert and the ruins of Zenobia's city. Many monuments were badly damaged between 2015 and 2017.
Raqqa
A Euphrates city once Harun al-Rashid's capital, parts of its Abbasid wall still standing.
Deir ez-Zor
A city on the Euphrates near some of the region's oldest sites: Mari and Dura-Europos.
Hasakah
Wheat and cotton plains on the Khabur, and archaeological mounds thousands of years old.
Mashta al-Helu
A mountain town among pines and oaks in rural Tartus, near the Valley of the Christians.
Mashqita
A hill town in rural Latakia overlooking the 16 Tishreen dam lake.
Kessab
An Armenian mountain town in the far north, between pine forests and Jebel Aqra.
Slenfeh
A resort at about 1,200 metres in the Latakia mountains, among pines and oaks.
Zabadani
A green plain between two ranges, cherry and apple orchards, and the Barada spring nearby.