Travel to the Five Oldest Cities in the World

Ancient Cities are New Travel Destinations

Exploring ancient cities is not like California travel where old means the gold rush of the 19th century. There’s something exciting and fascinating about visiting a city that’s been populated for five thousand years or more. Imagine what hotel guides looked like three thousand years when people would crave living quarters in bedrock and then connect them using catacombs. Large wheels of stones controlled by a lever separated the levels and provided security for guests.

Ancient travel destinations are becoming popular on travel websites where lists of old and colorful cities around the world are touted as the birthplace of a particular religion or the home of a biblical character. Most experienced artifacts and relic hunters travel to Turkey to find the oldest of the old cities since Turkey has a plethora of temples and mosaic museums as well as rain and wind eroded volcanic formations that redefine the meaning of the word old.

Europe and Asia are filled with ancient sites that claim to be the older than dirt. Experts argue about which city is actually the oldest inhabited city, but most people agree that Old Damascus is the winner. Varanasi, India could also be crowned the oldest inhabited city in the world. That title depends on the next archaeological dig that turns up the remains of another ancient civilization that keeps moving the clock of humanity back a few thousand years.

The ancient city of Ur which is now the modern-day Iraqi city Tell el-Muqayyar is considered the cradle of civilization by some historians, and other Archeologists say Matera, Italy has been inhabited since Paleolithic times so it holds a special spot on the wall of antiquity.

The Top Five Ancient Cities to Put on Your Must See List

Traveling through ancient times is always a trip to remember. You get a taste for age and cultural creativity when you visit these cities:

01. Damascus, Syria

Damascus the capital of Syria is known as the “fast-moving camel” by some because the city was built so quickly while others call it Damashq which was the name of the great-grandson of Sam who was Noah’s son.

02. Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq

Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq is the home of Abraham according to the bible and when the city was called Ur it was the home of ancient Sumerian culture.

03. Matera, Italy

Matera is a town in Southern Italy where the remains of the first settlers in Italy were discovered. Some of the homes in the old area of town called Sassi are dug into calcareous rock and the streets are on the rooftops of other homes.

04. Varanasi (Benares), India

Varanasi also known as Benares is situated on the banks of the River Ganges in India. The city is the holiness place in the Hindu world. Mark Twain once said, “Benares is older than tradition, older than history and even older than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.

05. Acheloos Mask on a Roman mosaic in the city of Zeugma – Gaziantep

Gaziantep is in Southern Turkey is home for the famous mosaic of a gypsy girl from the old city of Zeugma. It also Contain 2,000 year old Roman mosaics so it is considered one of the best cities in the world for ancient mosaic museum lovers.