Last weekend I had a chance to do a couple day-long trips not too far fway from Damascus with another Spanish girl who was brave enough to drive on the Syrian highways. I have now myself driven here and I realize it is not nearly as scary as I expected at first, but still the traffic of downtown Damascus in peak time freaks me out.
Anyways, going back to my weekend, I visited a magnificent castle (actually it is a fortress), and this is coming from a Spaniard that has visited many castles in Spain, France, and many other countries.
The Krak des Chevaliers (Fortress of the Knights) is a Crusader fortress located in a key spot: on top of a high hill, very close to the Mediterranean, near the border of Lebanon. From up here the crusaders could keep an eye on the road of the Mediterranean, on the lake Homs, as well as on their rivals the Muslim armies.
It was built a long time ago, in 1031, and still today it remains pretty much intact. The first crusaders arrived to it at the end of the 11th century during the First Crusade, but they soon abandoned it to continue their way towards Jerusalem. Then came the Hospitaller Knights, who rebuilt much of it and even expanded it. It is believed that up to 2,000 men lived here at some point, where they could host about 1,000 horses. Storage facilities were so big that it is said they could have withstood a siege for five years!
Today the Krak des Chevaliers is considered a model of perfection of medieval fortification and the greatest fortress in the world. It was actually never conquered and it took one smart man to be able to kick the crusaders out. His name was Baibars and after trying to conquer the place unsuccessfully, like many others before, he decided to trick the inhabitants of the Krak. He forged a letter from the crusader commander, asking the defenders to surrender. They knights were so naive that they actually gave in, and this was the only way the castle ever fell.
But in fact what I wanted to share with you is how beautiful and magnificent this place is. To me it represents what we all dreamt of as kids, especially boys when they dream of being knights, girls dreaming they are princesses.
Even TE Lawrence of Arabia described it as “perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world”.
* All pictures by la elfa except the 1st one
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