Syria's Crusader Castles

A short distance before Banyas, once a Phoenician port, 34 miles south of Latakia, we saw the enormous citadel of Marqab towering atop a mountain. Taking a side road, we quickly made our way up the terraced mountainside to this huge bulk of glowering basalt rock.

One of the great Crusader fortresses, Marqab, 1,640 feet above sea level, is an enormous fortress covering 12 acres with 14 square and round towers jutting from the curtain wall that encircles the hilltop, forming a triangular bastion. Its southern corner, sharper than the others and bristling with defences, has a keep rising above it like a prow of some fantastically huge ocean liner.

Commanding an important route across Syria's coastal range, the site of the fortress of Marqab, whose name in Arabic means 'lookout', has been a strategic spot since Byzantine times. However, it was only during the Crusades that it became farnous. After changing hands several times, major additions were made in A.D. 1140 by the Hospitaller Knights to its fortifications. Saladin did not even try to breach its wall and it withstood the attacks by the Mameluk Sultan Baybars. Thereafter the Crusaders believed it was impregnable, but in 1285, it fell to the armies of the Mameluk Sultan Qalaoun.

Inside, the castle is in an advanced state of disrepair. Only a Gothic chapel and the keep are still in good condition. However, from is grass-grown and windswept outer battlements we enjoyed a breath-taking view of the mountainous landscape and the Mediterranean below.

Fifty-six miles south of Latakia, we were in Tartous, once the main supply port of the Crusaders and today Syria's second largest port. For decades a base for the Templer Knights, it was lost to the Crusaders in 1291. We drove into the medieval heart of the fast expanding seaport, amazed to see homes built on top of what must have been wide Crusader walls.

Our stop at the cathedral, a jewel of Romanesque art, now serving as a museum, was our farewell to the city. After examining the half dozen sarcophagi unearthed in nearby Amrit and an 800 B.C. stone carving of the god Baal, we left for the mountain town of Safita.

All around us as far as the eye could see were olive fields dotted with prosperous looking clean villages. In less than an hour we were in Safita -- a town of tiled roofs surrounded by flowering trees and olive groves. It is built on the site of a fortress the Crusaders called Castle Le Blanc (the White Fort). We climbed its still standing burj (tower) from which we could survey the countryside for a great distance. In times of danger, during the Crusades, smoke signals were relayed between Saladin's Castle, Marqab, Safita and Crac des Chevaliers, our next stop.

As we drove towards this most famous medieval citadel in the world, 40 miles southeast of Tartous, we could see it towering in the distance from many of the elevated parts on the road. Our spirits were high in anticipation of exploring this epitome of twelfth-century fortress buildings. A few minutes later, we could see clearly, silhouetted on a high hill, the most extraordinary of all Crusader strongholds in the Middle East.