Discover Syria

Syria runs from a short Mediterranean coast over a coastal mountain range and down into the interior, where the great cities sit: Damascus, continuously inhabited for perhaps five thousand years, and Aleppo, its northern rival, both built around covered souks and a citadel on a mound. Between and beyond them the fertile land follows the Orontes and then the Euphrates, which crosses the country diagonally on its way to Iraq.

East and south of the cultivated belt is the badia, the desert steppe, and in the middle of it stands Palmyra — a Roman caravan city of colonnades and tower tombs that grew rich on the trade between the Mediterranean and Persia. The coastal range carries the crusader castles, of which Krak des Chevaliers is the most complete example of its kind anywhere, and the north-west holds the Dead Cities, several hundred abandoned Byzantine settlements standing roofless in open country.

All six of Syria’s UNESCO World Heritage sites are currently on the list of World Heritage in Danger, and the country has been through more than a decade of war whose effects on infrastructure, security and daily life are still unfolding. Check your own government’s current travel advice before planning anything; at the time of writing most advise against travel.