Resafa

Resafa was Sergiopolis, the pilgrimage city of Saint Sergius, and its walls still stand almost complete in open desert: a rectangle of gypsum stone that catches the light and seems to glow, with towers, gates, the shells of great basilicas and enormous vaulted cisterns that made a city possible where there is no river. An Umayyad caliph later kept a residence here. The northern gate, with its carved arcade, is one of the finest pieces of Byzantine architecture in Syria.

What you actually see

• The city walls - the near-complete circuit of glowing gypsum.
• The north gate - the carved triple entrance arcade.
• The basilicas - the shells of the pilgrimage churches.
• The cisterns - vaulted underground reservoirs of huge size.

When to go

March to April and October to November are mild; summer in the open desert is severe. Low sun makes the gypsum walls luminous.

Honest expectations

The site is in open desert with no facilities or shade, and access needs local arrangement. Parts of the walls and vaults are unstable. Water and everything else must be carried.

Nearby

Raqqa and the Euphrates are north, and the desert road runs south.