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One of the reasons that we had to go to Syria this time... Crac des Chevaliers.
It's so impressive in size in the first glimpse, I can still feel it every time I look at the photos.
The little van on the road would help imagine how enormous the castle is.
We went with an organized tour from the Riad hotel we stayed ( 1500sp for 2 adluts and 2 children) and stopped two more place on the way here. Just after lunch we had at al-Qalaa which was amazingly delicious (will be another posting about it), we decided to walk down to the castle. Two beutiful looking cows were grazing on the grass.
As T.E.Lawrence said about this 'perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world'. And this was truly beutiful and even romantic...
We walked along the walls and there was a gate looking rather back entrance so we stepped in. There were no tourist but only a couple of local boys coming through the gate. We saw a flight of stairs into the castle so we climbed into the castle. In the end, it turned out that we came through the back entrance and didn't have to pay the entrance fee!
wow, the vaulted ceiling was so high and impressive, it must've been really lavish building.
Because we came through the back door, there was no way we could hire a guide, so we went around by ourselves.
It didn't matter that we don't know the place in detail, it was so inspiring just to be there...
It was built by Syrians in the 11th Century but the crusaders took it soon after and expanded it in the 12th and the 13th century. It's size was so big that 2000 people could reside and they stored enough supply to last 5 years. It's not just a pretty face, is it?
Climbed up one of the towers and took a family photo. The look on the girls are hilarious.
It's nervewracking looking down from the tower, especially there was no guardrail at all. But imagination of all the things would've been happening here at that time can be distraction from the fear of falling off. There would've been peasants running around doing jobs and the sight of the lord or some high ranking people turning up with guards, or sometimes a cool looking knight with the costume would've been rushing in on the horse back shouting 'enemy is here!' and so on...
The width of the outer wall is so impressive that it would've been near impossible to take the castle. After the outer wall, there is a moat and the inner wall to get across to capture the castle...
The lonely planet says that this castle was never captured but Wikipedia says that Mameluke Sultan Baibars captured the castle in 1271. I wouldn't know the truth, but it's so obvious it would've been absolutely tough to penetrate the defense.
The kids don't care whether the stones they are playing on are nearly 1000 years old... it became mere toys for them...
Out of the frying pan into the fire... The left is the outer wall and the moat in the middle and the right is the inner wall..
Couldn't find a way out because we never came into the right entrance. we got lost and took a quite while to find our way out.
It was said that the Edward I of England who got to see this castle during the crusade felt in love with the castle, so he had his castles in England built in the similar style.
Something strange thing about this place was that we rarely met an arab person who knew this place. For Arabs, the castle is known as 'Al-Qalaat al Hosn', but few people knew even that name.
The crusades are portrayed as some kind of holy war to the western world but it was bloody and barbaric act of aggression to take control of rich trade routes. I guess it wouldn't be very pleasant for the arabs to be reminded of the terrible and cruel war they had to endure.
This month edition of the National Geographic had an article about the Arab christians. They've had a terrible time between Jews and Muslims in the troubled land in recent times, but they were killed by christians during the crusades as well. The crusaders killed muslims on the way to the Jerusalem(they even ate people in some places), but they also killed Arab christians.
This beutiful and romantic castle still stands strong and has been for the last 1000 years, but in the background it's not all happy story.
Even sadder fact is that the tragedy that happened 1000 years still exists in the same way on this region...
It's so impressive in size in the first glimpse, I can still feel it every time I look at the photos.
The little van on the road would help imagine how enormous the castle is.
We went with an organized tour from the Riad hotel we stayed ( 1500sp for 2 adluts and 2 children) and stopped two more place on the way here. Just after lunch we had at al-Qalaa which was amazingly delicious (will be another posting about it), we decided to walk down to the castle. Two beutiful looking cows were grazing on the grass.
As T.E.Lawrence said about this 'perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world'. And this was truly beutiful and even romantic...
We walked along the walls and there was a gate looking rather back entrance so we stepped in. There were no tourist but only a couple of local boys coming through the gate. We saw a flight of stairs into the castle so we climbed into the castle. In the end, it turned out that we came through the back entrance and didn't have to pay the entrance fee!
wow, the vaulted ceiling was so high and impressive, it must've been really lavish building.
Because we came through the back door, there was no way we could hire a guide, so we went around by ourselves.
It didn't matter that we don't know the place in detail, it was so inspiring just to be there...
It was built by Syrians in the 11th Century but the crusaders took it soon after and expanded it in the 12th and the 13th century. It's size was so big that 2000 people could reside and they stored enough supply to last 5 years. It's not just a pretty face, is it?
Climbed up one of the towers and took a family photo. The look on the girls are hilarious.
It's nervewracking looking down from the tower, especially there was no guardrail at all. But imagination of all the things would've been happening here at that time can be distraction from the fear of falling off. There would've been peasants running around doing jobs and the sight of the lord or some high ranking people turning up with guards, or sometimes a cool looking knight with the costume would've been rushing in on the horse back shouting 'enemy is here!' and so on...
The width of the outer wall is so impressive that it would've been near impossible to take the castle. After the outer wall, there is a moat and the inner wall to get across to capture the castle...
The lonely planet says that this castle was never captured but Wikipedia says that Mameluke Sultan Baibars captured the castle in 1271. I wouldn't know the truth, but it's so obvious it would've been absolutely tough to penetrate the defense.
The kids don't care whether the stones they are playing on are nearly 1000 years old... it became mere toys for them...
Out of the frying pan into the fire... The left is the outer wall and the moat in the middle and the right is the inner wall..
Couldn't find a way out because we never came into the right entrance. we got lost and took a quite while to find our way out.
It was said that the Edward I of England who got to see this castle during the crusade felt in love with the castle, so he had his castles in England built in the similar style.
Something strange thing about this place was that we rarely met an arab person who knew this place. For Arabs, the castle is known as 'Al-Qalaat al Hosn', but few people knew even that name.
The crusades are portrayed as some kind of holy war to the western world but it was bloody and barbaric act of aggression to take control of rich trade routes. I guess it wouldn't be very pleasant for the arabs to be reminded of the terrible and cruel war they had to endure.
This month edition of the National Geographic had an article about the Arab christians. They've had a terrible time between Jews and Muslims in the troubled land in recent times, but they were killed by christians during the crusades as well. The crusaders killed muslims on the way to the Jerusalem(they even ate people in some places), but they also killed Arab christians.
This beutiful and romantic castle still stands strong and has been for the last 1000 years, but in the background it's not all happy story.
Even sadder fact is that the tragedy that happened 1000 years still exists in the same way on this region...
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