The archive
All destinations
53 documented sites across 13 categories, each rated for biblical significance.
5/5 SignificanceJerusalem, Israel
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The site venerated since the fourth century as both Golgotha and the empty tomb — six denominations, one roof, no easy peace.
5/5 SignificanceBethlehem, Palestine
Church of the Nativity
The oldest church in continuous daily use in the Christian world, standing over a limestone cave marked by a fourteen-pointed silver star.
5/5 SignificanceTiberias, Israel
Sea of Galilee
A freshwater lake 210 metres below sea level where most of Jesus' public ministry took place — and still recognisably itself.
5/5 SignificanceJerusalem, Israel
Mount of Olives
The ridge east of the Old City where Jesus wept, prayed, was arrested and ascended — and the view every pilgrim photographs.
5/5 SignificanceCapernaum, Israel
Capernaum
Jesus' base of operations — a black basalt fishing village with a synagogue and a house the earliest Christians already treated as Peter's.
5/5 SignificanceSelçuk, Turkey
Ephesus
Paul spent three years here, a riot broke out over his preaching, and the ruins are among the best-preserved in the Mediterranean.
5/5 SignificanceSaint Catherine, Egypt
Mount Sinai
The 2,285-metre granite peak that Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition identifies as the mountain of the Law.
5/5 SignificanceSaint Catherine, Egypt
Saint Catherine's Monastery
The oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, guarding the Burning Bush and a library second only to the Vatican's.
5/5 SignificanceAl-Maghtas, Jordan
Bethany Beyond the Jordan
The east-bank site where John baptised — identified by Byzantine pilgrim accounts, mosaics and the ruins they described.
5/5 SignificanceQumran, Israel
Qumran
Eleven caves above the Dead Sea where a shepherd found the oldest biblical manuscripts in existence.
5/5 SignificanceChora, Greece
Patmos
The island of exile where John received the Revelation — the cave is still there, and so is the crack in the rock.
5/5 SignificanceAntakya, Turkey
Antioch (Antakya)
Where the disciples were first called Christians, and where Paul's missionary journeys began.
5/5 SignificanceNasiriyah, Iraq
Ur of the Chaldees
The Sumerian city Abraham left when the call came.
5/5 SignificanceHebron, Palestine
Cave of the Patriarchs
Abraham's burial field, enclosed by Herod and never abandoned.
4/5 SignificanceVatican City, Vatican City
St Peter's Basilica
Michelangelo's dome over the tomb of the fisherman — the largest church ever built, and the one that cost the Reformation.
4/5 SignificanceSantiago de Compostela, Spain
Camino de Santiago
Eight hundred kilometres across northern Spain to the shrine of St James — the pilgrimage that never went out of use.
4/5 SignificanceJerusalem, Israel
Via Dolorosa
Fourteen stations threaded through the crowded lanes of the Muslim Quarter, ending inside the Holy Sepulchre.
4/5 SignificanceSantiago de Compostela, Spain
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
Journey's end for a million pilgrims, where an eighty-kilogram censer swings the width of the transept.
4/5 SignificanceNazareth, Israel
Basilica of the Annunciation
The largest church in the Middle East, built over a first-century cave-house where an inscription reads Ave Maria.
4/5 SignificanceRome, Italy
Catacombs of San Callisto
Twenty kilometres of tunnels on four levels where half a million early Christians were buried — and where nine popes lie.
4/5 SignificanceMadaba, Jordan
Mount Nebo
The ridge from which Moses saw the Promised Land he was not permitted to enter.
4/5 SignificanceJericho, Palestine
Jericho
The oldest continuously inhabited city on earth, with a Neolithic tower older than the pyramids and walls that made it famous.
4/5 SignificanceLondon, United Kingdom
Codex Sinaiticus, British Library
The oldest surviving complete New Testament, written on vellum in the fourth century and open in a glass case in Euston.
4/5 SignificanceWadi El Natrun, Egypt
Wadi El Natrun
The Nitrian desert where Christian monasticism was invented — four Coptic monasteries still working the same ground.
4/5 SignificanceDoğubayazıt, Turkey
Mount Ararat
The snow-capped landing place named at the end of the flood.
4/5 SignificanceShiloh, Palestine
Shiloh
Israel's first sanctuary, where the tabernacle stood for centuries.
4/5 SignificanceHillah, Iraq
Babylon
The empire of the exile, and the city of the prophets' laments.
4/5 SignificanceHaifa, Israel
Mount Carmel
The ridge where Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal.
4/5 SignificanceMegiddo, Israel
Megiddo
Twenty-six cities stacked on one mound above the valley of Armageddon.
4/5 SignificanceBeer Sheva, Israel
Beersheba
The well at the edge of the desert where the patriarchs swore oaths.
3/5 SignificanceIstanbul, Turkey
Hagia Sophia
For nine hundred years the largest cathedral in the world — Justinian's dome, then a mosque, then a museum, then a mosque again.
3/5 SignificanceKalambaka, Greece
Meteora
Six surviving monasteries balanced on sandstone pillars three hundred metres above the plain of Thessaly.
3/5 SignificanceChartres, France
Chartres Cathedral
The most complete Gothic cathedral in existence, with 176 medieval windows and a labyrinth walked as pilgrimage.
3/5 SignificanceAssisi, Italy
Basilica of St Francis
Giotto's frescoes over the tomb of the man who preached to birds and rebuilt the church by leaving it everything.
3/5 SignificanceTurin, Italy
Turin Cathedral and the Shroud
A 4.4-metre linen bearing the faint front-and-back image of a crucified man — the most studied object in the world.
3/5 SignificanceCologne, Germany
Cologne Cathedral
Six hundred and thirty-two years under construction, sheltering a gold reliquary said to hold the Magi.
3/5 SignificanceKaryes, Greece
Mount Athos
A self-governing Orthodox peninsula of twenty monasteries where the Byzantine calendar still runs and no woman may enter.
3/5 SignificanceCanterbury, United Kingdom
Canterbury Cathedral
Four knights murdered an archbishop at the altar in 1170 and made this the greatest pilgrimage site in medieval England.
3/5 SignificanceHoly Island, United Kingdom
Lindisfarne
A tidal island where Irish monks brought Christianity to northern England — and where the Viking Age began in 793.
3/5 SignificanceRome, Italy
Via Francigena
Sigeric the Serious walked home from Rome to Canterbury in 990 and wrote down every stop — the itinerary is still walkable.
3/5 SignificanceLutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany
Wittenberg Castle Church
The door where the Ninety-Five Theses were posted in 1517 — now cast in bronze, the wooden original long since burned.
3/5 SignificanceTrondheim, Norway
Nidaros Cathedral
Built over the grave of St Olav, the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world and the end of the Norwegian pilgrim road.
3/5 SignificanceIsle of Iona, United Kingdom
Iona Abbey
Columba landed here from Ireland in 563 and the Christianity of Scotland went out from a Hebridean island a mile and a half wide.
3/5 SignificanceTrondheim, Norway
St Olav's Way
The northernmost pilgrimage in Christendom: 640 kilometres from Oslo over the mountains to Olav's shrine at Nidaros.
3/5 SignificanceNagasaki, Japan
Twenty-Six Martyrs Monument
Six friars, three Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen were crucified on Nishizaka Hill in 1597 — and the church went underground for 250 years.
3/5 SignificanceBethlehem Governorate, Palestine
Mar Saba
A fifth-century lavra hung on the cliffs of the Kidron gorge, still lit by oil lamps and still refusing women at the gate.
3/5 SignificanceGeneva, Switzerland
St Pierre Cathedral
Calvin's pulpit, stripped bare by iconoclasts in 1535, above an archaeological site running back to the fourth century.
2/5 SignificanceLourdes, France
Sanctuary of Lourdes
A grotto in the Pyrenees where a fourteen-year-old saw eighteen apparitions in 1858 — and where six million pilgrims come each year.
2/5 SignificanceRome, Italy
The Colosseum
Whether Christians died in this particular arena is disputed — that the empire killed them for the Name is not.
2/5 SignificanceBarcelona, Spain
Sagrada Família
Gaudí's unfinished basilica, where the whole Gospel is carved into stone and the columns are engineered as a forest.
2/5 SignificanceMexico City, Mexico
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe
The most visited Catholic shrine on earth, built around a cloak that has hung on display since 1531.
2/5 SignificanceFátima, Portugal
Sanctuary of Fátima
Three shepherd children, six apparitions in 1917, and the Miracle of the Sun witnessed by a crowd of seventy thousand.
2/5 SignificanceTaizé, France
Taizé Community
A Burgundian hillside where a hundred thousand young people a year sing four-line chants in the dark.