Erbil Citadel
Why this is the first thing I do every time I land in Iraq.
Read MoreUr’s ancient ziggurat
A closer look at one of Iraq's most rewarding experiences.
Read MoreMutanabbi Street book market
Where to go next once you have seen the headline sights of Iraq.
Read MoreIraq holds some of the oldest continuously inhabited ground on earth, and travelling there now, in the parts that welcome visitors, means walking through the literal cradle of writing, law, and cities themselves. I’ve found Iraqi Kurdistan the most straightforward entry point — Erbil’s citadel has stood, in some form, for six thousand years, and its bazaar still trades as it always has, beneath a skyline of newer towers. Further south, Baghdad and the Shia shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala carry a different intensity, pilgrimage crowds moving through gold-domed courtyards with a devotion that predates the country’s modern borders entirely. This is not casual travel, and it demands real planning and local guidance, but for those who make the effort, Iraq offers a depth of history matched by almost nowhere else.
Chapter One
Erbil’s ancient citadel
Erbil Citadel sits on a mound built up by roughly six thousand years of continuous habitation, one of the oldest such sites anywhere, and walking its restored lanes at dusk, with the bazaar’s call to prayer rising from below, I felt the weight of that continuity directly underfoot. The Qaysari Bazaar beneath it still trades textiles, gold, and spices much as it has for centuries. Kurdistan more broadly offers a gentler geography than most people expect from Iraq — the Zagros foothills around Rawanduz and Amedi carry genuine mountain scenery, waterfalls, and Christian and Yazidi villages that have preserved distinct traditions through difficult decades.
“Iraq is where the idea of the city was invented, and it has never quite stopped proving the point.”
Chapter Two
The shrine cities
Najaf and Karbala hold two of Shia Islam’s holiest sites, the shrines of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein, and I visited during a quieter period between major pilgrimage seasons, still finding the golden-domed courtyards full of quiet devotion, marble floors cooled underfoot, chandeliers overhead. Baghdad itself carries visible scars alongside genuine warmth — the Mutanabbi Street book market, rebuilt after a 2007 bombing, now hosts a lively Friday gathering of poets and booksellers again. Ur, near Nasiriyah, holds the excavated ziggurat where, by tradition, the prophet Abraham was born, a low stepped structure standing in flat desert since roughly 2100 BCE.
The Short List
Do not miss in Iraq
At a glance
Iraq in numbers
- Capital
- Baghdad
- Language
- Arabic and Kurdish
- Currency
- Iraqi dinar
- Best time
- March to May and October to November, avoiding extreme summer heat
Did you know
Erbil Citadel is recognised by UNESCO as one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world.