Antakya

This mosque was rebuilt after it was wrecked by earthquakes in 1853 and again in 2023, so what you see now is a squeaky-clean version of 2026. It's on the site of an ancient pagan temple and became one of the first Christian churches, and from the 7th century one of the first mosques in the region, flipflopping between those religions as control of the city ebbed back and forth. Habib Al-Najjar ("the beloved carpenter") in legend lived 5-35 AD. When the Apostles visited Antioch they cured his son and he converted to Christianity, but was slain by the townsfolk for preaching that creed. Islamic tradition also reveres him for worshipping the true God, as described in Qur'an, sura Ya-Sin (36), ayah 20-27. His tomb is in the basement, and four sarcophagi are said to be Apostles or Islamic prophets who died nowhere remotely near Antioch.

They were preparing to build a hotel in 2009 when they found remains of ancient Antioch, so they mounted the hotel on steel pillars and created a museum below. There's an ancient road pavement, a ruined bathhouse, and Roman floor mosaics.

One of the oldest churches of Christianity, where St Peter preached, though its earliest structures are from 4th or 5th century. It's a cave on a cliff face recessing 13 m. Around 1100 the Crusaders enlarged the cave and added a stone façade, which was rebuilt in 1863. The statue of St Peter above the altar is from 1932.

Brilliant collection of classical mosaics, coins, sarcophagi, and Iron and Bronze Ages artefacts. It suffered minor damage in 2023 and is being repaired rather than rebuilt.

St Simeon the Younger (521–597) was a stylite, an ascetic who lived his life atop a pillar. This monastery is the site of the final pillar he occupied; only its base survives, along with the ruins of three churches and a baptistry. The monastery was destroyed in 1268. The draughty hilltop has fine views and a series of wind turbines.

An Alawite pilgrimage shrine and mausoleum in a modern building on a traffic island. The plastered rock inside is believed to be the meeting place of Moses and the holy man Al-Khidr, as described in Quran sura Al-Kahf (18), ayah 60-82. The custom is to burn incense while circumnavigating the shrine counterclockwise three times before entering to make a wish, and again three times after stepping out, so it's handy that the holy meeting was in the middle of a roundabout.

The most substantial of the remains of Roman Seleucia, a channel and tunnel hacked through the rock for 1.4 km to divert a river. That was partly for flood control but mostly to prevent the harbour being trashed by river silt and debris. Work started under Emperor Vespasian (ruled 69-79 AD), continued under Titus (r 79-81) and was completed under Antoninus Pius (r 138–161). Legionnaires, sailors, prisoners, slaves and other expendables laboured away here. You enter the deep channel (nowadays dry except after rainfall), and with a flashlight can continue into the tunnel. Most visitors turn back after 100 m but you can go right through.

This castle guards the southern approach to the Syrian Gates through the Amanos Mountains. The first known structure was 9th-century Byzantine, and it was kept in good repair by the Knights Templar and Armenians, until abandoned in the 13th century after defeat by the Mamluks. It's a steep rough trail and the ruin is so overgrown and tumbledown, you may struggle to find a way in.