The Malwiya Minaret, Samarra
The great spiral minaret of the Abbasid mosque at Samarra is one of the most extraordinary structures in the Islamic world — a cone-shaped ramp corkscrewing 52 metres into the sky, built in the 9th century when Samarra was the Abbasid capital. You can climb to the top. The view over the Tigris plain is worth the effort, and standing at the apex you understand exactly why the Abbasids built it: it was visible for miles. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Iraq's most visited monuments.
The Ziggurat of Ur
Near An Nasiriyah in the south stands the ziggurat of Ur, one of the best-preserved Sumerian monuments in Iraq. Built around 2100 BC for the moon god Nanna, the structure rises in massive stepped terraces from the surrounding plain. This was once one of the great cities of the ancient world — possibly the birthplace of Abraham. Standing at the base of the ziggurat, you feel the weight of those four thousand years in a way that photographs don't quite convey.
Erbil Citadel
The mound at the centre of Erbil has been continuously inhabited for at least six thousand years — arguably the oldest continuously occupied settlement on earth. The citadel is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The narrow lanes and crumbling mudbrick facades of the old quarter sit incongruously above a modern Kurdish city of shopping malls and teahouses. It is a good place to start any visit to Kurdistan.
The Shia Shrine Cities — Karbala and Najaf
Karbala and An Najaf are two of the holiest cities in Shia Islam and among the most visited pilgrimage destinations on earth. The golden-domed shrines of Hussein (Karbala) and Ali (Najaf) draw tens of millions of pilgrims a year. Non-Muslim visitors are welcome and are usually met with curiosity and warmth. The atmosphere — particularly during major pilgrimage events — is unlike anything in the rest of Iraq: dense crowds, extraordinary devotion, the sound of chanting and prayer. In Najaf, the vast Wadi es-Salaam cemetery stretches to the horizon, the largest in the world.
Babylon
The ruins of Babylon, an hour south of Baghdad, do require some imagination. Saddam Hussein had much of the site rebuilt in the 1980s in a way that archaeologists have always found troubling, and the original structure is buried beneath or mixed with that reconstruction. But the scale of the ancient city is still legible, and the site carries enormous power. The Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Even in ruins, Babylon is Babylon.
Nineveh and Nimrud
The great Assyrian cities near Mosul are among the most important archaeological sites in the world — and among the most heartbreaking to visit, because ISIS systematically destroyed much of what was there. Ninevah was the capital of the Assyrian empire in the 7th century BC; its walls were 12 km in circumference. Nimrod was the earlier Assyrian capital, with monumental palace entrances guarded by human-headed winged lions. Enough survives to be deeply worth seeing, and Mosul itself is in the process of rebuilding its remarkable old city.