Ancient ruins, medieval fortifications, historic village landscapes and traditional craft knowledge offer different starting points for a cultural trip. If you are looking for hotels in Syria, it helps to first decide which of these themes you want to shape your trip. The historic sites and traditions offer different perspectives: on urban planning, religious and political history, rural cultural landscapes or the production of regional goods.
Ancient Urban Layouts and Their Buildings
Palmyra represents an ancient urban layout whose art and architecture, from the 1st to the 2nd century, combined Greco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences. Its monumental axis is a 1,100-metre-long colonnaded street. Together with the cross streets lined with columns, it connects important public buildings. These include the Temple of Ba'al, Diocletian's Camp, the agora and the theatre. The colonnaded streets are therefore not only individual monuments but also shape the connections between public buildings.
In the Ancient City of Damascus, evidence of Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic civilisations converges. The surviving Roman remains include those of the Temple of Jupiter, various city gates and an impressive section of the Roman city wall. Aleppo offers a different urban perspective: its historic urban fabric includes the citadel and the Great Mosque, dating to the 12th century, as well as madrasas, houses, khans and public baths from the 16th and 17th centuries. This makes it possible to distinguish individual monuments from the broader history of an evolving urban fabric.
Bosra, too, brings together Roman and later architectural history within a clearly defined historic setting: within the walls of the Ancient City are a Roman theatre dating to the 2nd century, early Christian ruins and several mosques. Bosra was once the capital of the Roman province of Arabia and an important stop on the old caravan route to Mecca. This former role adds the city’s historical significance to the appreciation of its buildings.
Fortifications and Different Building Phases
When exploring Syria’s castles, it is worth looking at the history of each one’s construction. Crac des Chevaliers was built by the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem between 1142 and 1271. Qal’at Salah El-Din, by contrast, preserves features from several periods: its Byzantine beginnings in the 10th century, Frankish alterations in the late 12th century and Ayyubid fortifications from the late 12th to the mid-13th century. The castle is partly in ruins. Rather than a single building phase, this comparison reveals a sequence of different historical layers.
Historic Villages and Regional Craft Traditions
The Ancient Villages of Northern Syria comprise around forty ancient villages in an extensive limestone massif in northwestern Syria. They are grouped into eight archaeological parks and form historic cultural landscapes. Many original monuments and buildings have been preserved there, including houses, pagan temples, churches and Christian shrines, tombs, bathhouses, as well as public buildings and buildings used for economic activities or crafts. The villages were abandoned between the 8th and 10th centuries. The focus here is not on a single monument, but on the connections between settlements, buildings and landscape.
Craft knowledge is also part of the cultural heritage. Aleppo ghar soap is made using traditional knowledge and craft skills. Its production combines natural, locally produced olive oil, called metraf, with laurel oil, ghar; production begins in winter. In Al-Mrah, in the rural surroundings of Damascus, farmers and families make, among other things, essential oils and traditional remedies from the Damask rose. The village community and families organise the Damascene Rose Festival every year. The traditions therefore also differ in their timing: soap-making is noted as beginning in winter, while the rose festival is organised annually.
Discover more destinations: Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, Tartus, Majdal Shams, Qaşrīn, Hungary, Dominica.
