You are most welcome to Syria

The oldest continuously inhabited capital in the world.

Damascus appears in the archives of Mari from the 25th century BC and in Egyptian records of the 19th. Inside the old walls are the Umayyad Mosque, built in the 8th century on the site of an Aramaean temple and a Byzantine church, the 18th-century Azem Palace, the covered Hamidiyah bazaar, the Street Called Straight and the Chapel of Ananias, the oldest Christian house in the city.

• Umayyad Mosque
• Azem Palace
• Hamidiyah Souq
• Chapel of Ananias
• Saladin's Mausoleum
• National Museum
• Takiyya Suleimaniyya
• Mount Qasioun

Around the capital: Maaloula and Seidnaya in the hills, and the monastery of Mar Musa, whose church holds frescoes from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Palmyra, the bride of the desert.

An oasis halfway between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, Palmyra grew rich on the caravan trade and the Silk Road. Under Queen Zenobia it rose in open defiance of Rome. Its colonnaded street, theatre, agora and valley of tombs still tell that story.

• Colonnaded street
• Theatre
• Agora
• Valley of the Tombs
• Palmyra Museum
• Zenobia desert camp

Nights in the desert: the Zenobia camp near Palmyra has tented rooms, a restaurant serving mansaf, and hot sulphur springs.

Crusader stone, Roman columns and turning wooden wheels.

Krak des Chevaliers rises above the Homs gap. Along the Orontes, the great wooden norias of Hama still lift water. Apamea's colonnaded street runs for nearly two kilometres, and Serjilla is one of the Byzantine villages left standing in the limestone hills.

• Krak des Chevaliers
• Norias of Hama
• Apamea
• Serjilla
• St. George's Monastery

A citadel, a Great Mosque, and souqs that recall every empire.

Occupied since early in the second millennium BC, Aleppo carries the marks of the Hittites, Assyrians, Arabs, Mamluks and Ottomans. Above the city stands the 13th-century Citadel. Nearby is the 12th-century Great Mosque with its madrasas, caravanserais and baths. North-west of the city, the Cathedral of St. Simeon stands on its hill.

• Aleppo Citadel
• Great Mosque
• The souqs
• Armenian quarter
• St. Simeon
• Qal'at Ja'bar

Pine forests, Crusader keeps and the world's first alphabet.

Ugarit, just north of Latakia, flourished until about 1200 BC. Its scribes wrote one of the earliest alphabets on clay tablets. Inland, Saladin's Castle sits on a ridge between two gorges. Along the shore, Latakia and Tartous look out over the Mediterranean.

• Ugarit
• Saladin's Castle
• Latakia
• Tartous

A Roman theatre hidden inside an Arab fortress.

Bosra appears in the lists of Tuthmosis III and the Amarna letters, and later as a Nabataean city. It was the first city in Syria to become Muslim. Its black basalt Roman theatre is one of the best preserved anywhere, enclosed within the walls of a later citadel.

• Roman theatre
• Citadel
• Nabataean arch