Day 14 Krak des Chevaliers

Friday March 4^th.

Today right after breakfast we all walked back along the road to Krak des Chevaliers castle. The castle is the most famous one built by the Crusaders across Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It was built over a few centuries by a various people, but completed by Richard the Lionheart. It was attacked and put under siege a couple of times, but never defeated. In the end, after most of the Middle East had fallen to the Arabs, the crusaders in this castle negotiated safe passage out of the area in exchange for the castle. It was taken over by a Mamluk Sultan and the first thing they did was to add a bath house, because the crusaders hadn't bothered to put one in anywhere!

After the Crusades had finally ended the castle was abandoned and local people built houses inside it. It wasn't until the French began restoration work that these people were kicked out.

The castle has an inner castle surrounded by a moat, then an outer wall surrounded by another moat. The castle is immense and well preserved. We had an excellent local guide who took us through secret passageways and other interesting areas of the castle.

After our tour we loaded back into our van for another exciting four hour drive along Syrian highways to Aleppo. We were dropped off outside the old city and had to walk about five minutes along the narrow winding streets of the souk (which was deserted because it was prayer day) to our lovely little boutique hotel. It's called Dar Halabia and has a lot of character and atmosphere.

We had a briefing meeting and then went for a short orientation walk to find an ATM, get our bearings and then head to another local restaurant. Jess again suggested we try a local dish called cherry kabob. I had that, a salad, and another lemon mint drink. It was all good. The food in the Middle East has been great, much better than Africa. The few times we ate local Africa food, it was pretty awful, thank goodness for Vernon and Winston.

Then back to our hotel for another early evening. Tomorrow we get to explore the longest covered souk in the Middle East.