Krak des Chevaliers, Syria

Early May 2002

Author Paul Theroux described the Crac des Chevaliers as the epitome of the dream castle of childhood fantasies; of jousts and armour and pennants. TE Lawrence simply called it 'the finest castle in the world'. You can take these dudes word for it as it's amazingly well preserved and amazingly HUGE.

The highlight of my tour here (besides the castle) was meeting some local guys at the taxi office. They said that there was an old guy in the village who would love to practice his English with us and he could be here in 20 minutes. Bryan and I said we would wait. One hour later, we were hyped up to the eyeballs on Turkish coffee, we had run out of small talk, the locals had run out of English and the old man still hadn't arrived. We made to leave but were ushered back to our seats and fed more Turkish coffee and twenty minutes later, the old bloke turned up. He said a few words of greeting, more locals turned up, surrounded us and then bundled us both into a mini van. Both Bryan and I were thinking 'Uh Oh. Something bad is going to happen'. Bryan went silent. I talked my head off. However, instead of being taken to a ditch to be robbed, killed and raped (in that order), the old man and his mates took us to a closed restaurant over looking then castle and we chatted about life and the universe while the sun went down over the castle. Phew! and Wow!

And we learned the trick about drinking mountains of Turkish coffee. If you put lots of sugar in it, it won't keep you up at night.

Some Links

Syrian Tourism

Virtual Tour and Floor Plan Of the Krak

Cool Pictures By Stuart Whatling

In the Distance

Castle in the distance. It's huge and absolutely dominates the landscape.

View of the Square Tower with the Keep behind it.

Inside the Outer Walls

This fabulous Crusader castle looks almost exactly as it would have 800 years ago. Crac des Chevaliers, guarding the only major pass between Antakya in Turkey and Beirut in Lebanon, was built and expanded between 1150 and 1250 and eventually housed a garrison of 4000. The castle held out against several attacks, but was lost to Sultan Baibars in 1271.

The castle has two parts: an outside wall with 13 towers and an inside wall and keep. The two are separated by a moat, now full of stagnant water, which was used to fill the baths and water the horses. Walk through the main entrance, an imposing gate in the 5m (16ft) thick wall and past the towers which defended the castle, and you enter a courtyard. A corridor covered in delicate carvings leads to a large vaulted hall, where you can see an old oven, a well and some latrines. The chapel in the courtyard was converted to a mosque after Sultan Baibar took over, and you can still see its pulpit. The top floor of the Tower of the Daughter of the King is now a cafe with great views.