Babylon

Nebuchadnezzar's street, still under your feet

Central Iraq · BEST SEASON: October - April

Blue glazed brick gate with animal reliefs under a clear sky. — BABYLON · JAN 2026 · 18 TRAVELERS

Babylon is an easy 90-minute drive south of Baghdad, just outside Hillah, where the Euphrates splits into slow green channels lined with date palms. You enter under a half-scale reproduction of the Ishtar Gate — the glazed original is in Berlin, and your guide will say so — then drop down onto the Processional Way, where the street level and the dragons molded into the brick walls are the real thing, laid under Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC. Saddam rebuilt heavily here in the 1980s, stamping his own name into the new bricks exactly as Babylonian kings once did; learning to spot where original ends and reconstruction begins is half the visit. Climb to his abandoned hilltop palace afterwards for the best view in central Iraq: ruins, palm groves, the river bending south. Come early — shade is scarce and the light on the brick is best before ten. Lunch is grilled Euphrates fish on the riverbank in Hillah.

FROM OUR TRIP JOURNAL

Last October we ended the day at Saddam's palace on the hill, and while everyone photographed the Euphrates through the empty window frames, a family from Hillah picnicking below waved our whole group down for tea and pomegranates. We left an hour behind schedule. Nobody complained.

WHAT WE SHOW YOU

The Processional Way

heritage

The original 600 BC street level, with mushhushshu dragons and bulls molded into Nebuchadnezzar's brickwork. You walk it directly, often with the site nearly to yourselves.

Lion of Babylon

heritage

A two-tonne black basalt lion standing over a fallen figure, more than 2,500 years old and Iraq's unofficial national symbol — you'll recognize it from the banknotes.

Ishtar Gate Reproduction

heritage

A half-scale 20th-century replica marks the entrance; the glazed-brick original stands in Berlin's Pergamon Museum, a story every Iraqi guide tells with practiced patience.

Saddam's Hilltop Palace

modern

An abandoned 1980s palace looming over the ruins: echoing marble halls, graffiti in a dozen languages, and the finest late-afternoon view of the Euphrates and palm groves.

Borsippa (Birs Nimrud)

heritage

Twenty minutes southwest, a ziggurat core fused glassy by ancient fire, tied in local legend to the Tower of Babel. Almost always completely deserted.

Masgouf on the Shatt al-Hilla

food

Hillah's riverside restaurants split Euphrates carp and grill it upright over open flame, served with onions, pickles, and tanoor bread pulled hot from the oven.

PROOF, NOT PROMISES