Crac des Chevaliers

Crac des Chevaliers sits imposingly on a 650-metre high hill, and its massive defensive outer curtain wall and thirteen towers can be seen from miles away on our approach.

Close to Homs and to the border with Lebanon, Crac des Chevaliers was strategically located in the Homs Gap, thus controlling the only route from Antioch to Beirut and the Mediterranean coast. It is one of the most important, largest and best-preserved Crusader castles in the Middle East, and a real highlight of our Syria tours.

Originally built in 1031, the Crusaders stopped only briefly at Crac des Chevaliers in their rush to Jerusalem, taking it from the Emir of Homs, who had garrisoned it with Kurdish troops relocated specifically for the purpose. Subsequently, and most famously, Crac des Chevaliers passed into the hands of the Hospitallers – in 1142 – and became part of the Crusader defensive network of castles in the region.

Eventually having a surface area of over 3,000 square metres and able to accommodate around 2,000 men, Crac des Chevaliers was seemingly impregnable to any attacking force. Arriving today before the imposing defensive walls, it is not hard to imagine why.

Unsuccessfully besieged by Fatimid Sultan, Nur ad Din Zengi, and the renowned Arab general, Saladin, the castle was finally taken in 1271 only through the means of deception at the hands of the Mamelukes, who forged a letter from a Hospitaller commander based in Tripoli to gain access. Even then, Crac was only taken by agreement between the Mamlukes and the Hospitallers, and not by force.

It is perhaps for this reason that “breaching the defences” of the castle, armed only with a walking stick and sun hat, and your tour guide, still feels special even today.

Our tour follows the route an attacker of the castle would have had to take in order to conquer the castle: breaching the defensive outer curtain walls, we enter a vaulted inner corridor, wide enough to accommodate two horsemen riding side by side. Here, as we proceed up the corridor, you can still see clearly where there would have been defensive gates and, looking up and seeing the holes in the roof, can well imagine hot oil and other equally unpleasant substances being poured on anyone fortunate enough to breach the outer defensive wall!

Even supposing an attacking force successfully navigated this first obstacle, the vaulted corridor gives way, through an impressive stone arch, onto the expansive inner ring, where they would then have been faced with an awe-inspiringly massive glacis, a smooth defensive wall protecting the inner curtain wall.

Once within this inner curtain wall, we finally come to the area of the castle where the Hospitallers felt safe enough to eat, sleep, pray and plan their continued control of the area.

There are a number of very interesting aspects in this area of the castle, including a small Romanesque chapel, which sadly was converted into a mosque by the Mamelukes when they conquered it, when much of the original detail was lost, though some fragments of Crusader frescoes do still remain. There is also the Great Hall, with its impressive Gothic colonnade; as well as a number of stables, stores, and defensive corridors to explore.

Depending on timing, either before or after the tour, we eat at a wonderful local restaurant with magnificent views of the castle.

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Other places of interest in Syria:

Qasr Al Heer Ash Sharqi

Shahba

St Simeon & the Dead Cities

Ugarit