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A Crusader castle stands sentinel over 1,000-year history
By DONNA BRYSON
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AHLWASH, Syria -- From a distance, the Crac des Chevaliers looks ephemeral white, brooding like winter clouds over the olive orchards of west-central Syria. The colors change to Tuscany pink up close, and the towers and battlements lose that fairy-tale magic and take on the force of history.
The Crusader castle stands out even in a country crowded with monuments stretching back thousands of years.
After visiting it during a summer off from Oxford in 1909, T.E. Lawrence called it "perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world." Nine years later, he returned to Syria at the head of an Arab revolt against the Turks and became the famed Lawrence of Arabia.
Decades after Lawrence, tourists exploring the Crac still find it impressive.
"I come from Britain, where there are a lot of Norman castles, but this is the biggest and the best," says Elaine Smith, carefully picking her way over paving stones worn by the centuries. Tourism officials say that every year as many as 130,000 visitors come to the Crac, situated about 80 miles north of Damascus.
Tancred, prince of Antioch, arrived at the head of a Crusader force in 1110 to find a small Kurdish fort standing on a volcanic ridge in the only gap in a mountain range that runs from Turkey to Lebanon. The Crusaders took over and began a renovation and construction project that lasted 160 years, the final structure reflecting an architectural mix of Europe and Asia.
Local black basalt forms the foundation. Pink and white limestone was dragged from a village 3 miles away for much of the rest of the complex, a rough rectangle of towers and Gothic arches and 3-yard-thick walls spread over 7 1/2 acres.
Ancient scribes compared the Crac to a white pigeon perched on a black stone. It kaleidoscopes from white to pink to gray depending on the light and the viewer's perspective.
Tourism officials have provided no explanatory signs, or even much in the way of lighting. While some might find that frustrating, the romantic will see it as license to let the imagination take over.
Entering from the gloom of the main passage into the brightness of the inner keep, it's almost possible to see the Crac bustling with the 4,000 soldiers and 400 mounted knights from England, France, Germany and Italy who held it eight centuries ago.
Medieval prayers must have reverberated in the castle chapel with
something of the high-minded fervor that led the knights to inscribe their meeting hall with the Latin motto: "If grace, wisdom and beauty are given to you, pride alone can tarnish all these qualities."
Rain stored in 21 cisterns kept the castle's knights, soldiers and slaves alive. They ground wheat with a windmill built in one of the 18 towers, and baked it in room-sized ovens. The sweet steam of bread must have mingled with the stench of horses and fighting men. (Water was precious, and the only sign of sanitary facilities are rows of stone-walled latrines.)
With two moats and two walls protecting the inner citadel, the Crac was impregnable. At its peak, the men of the Knights Hospitalers, dedicated to making the Holy Land safe for Christians, fought off assailants with arrows, boiling oil and catapult stones. A few basalt catapult stones remain in the zigzagging entry, ready to be hurled against the enemy.
A series of earthquakes from 1110 and 1200 shook but did not topple the Crac. The sultan of Damascus attacked in 1163 and failed. In 1188, the great warrior Saladin decided not to try, passing the Crac by on the way to conquests further north.
Finally, an Egyptian, the Mameluke Sultan Baibars, arrived in 1271.
"He didn't capture this castle by fighting," says Walid Murad, a Tourism Ministry official assigned to the Crac. "He made a siege -- some say one and a half months, some say two."
Starved, the Christians surrendered, and Baibars allowed them to live -- provided they leave Muslim lands. The sultan then added his own touches to the castle's Euro-Arab appearance, adding a Mecca-facing pulpit in the chapel and inscribing a blessing from the Koran over the entrance.
Under the Arabs the castle became the seat of the vice sultan and an important garrison. Over the centuries, it gradually fell into disuse, and local villagers moved in.
"I played here when I was a child," says Murad, whose squatter parents were born in the Crac.
By the time Murad was born, French colonial officials had moved his family and other squatters to nearby towns. The French declared the Crac their own national treasure, though local children continued to use it for play as a fairy tale come to life.
Since independence, Syrian antiquities and tourism officials have cared for the castle as a monument to their own complex national history.
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Getting there: Many European and Middle Eastern airlines serve the Syrian capital, Damascus, though no U.S. carriers do. Most foreigners will need to get visas before leaving home. From Damascus, government-owned Karnak Tours runs buses to Crac, or public buses can be taken to the town of Homs, where another bus or a taxi can be taken the 37 miles west to the Crac. Europcar in Damascus rents self-drive cars for a minimum of three days, so it may be more practical to take a chauffeured rental car for about $110 for the day. The Crac is about 80 miles north of Damascus on a hilltop overlooking the village of Ahlwash. Lodging: Several hotels are springing up around the Crac as the government and private entrepreneurs work to strengthen tourism in Syria. Visitors may prefer to stay in Damascus, taking day trips from there to the Crac and other sites. Accommodations in Damascus range from five-star hotels at $100 or more a night to dives charging a few dollars a night. Somewhere in the middle, and worth a look, is the Orient Palace Hotel, near the capital's grand French railway station. The Orient, built in 1928, offers remnants of Art Deco charm along with clean and basic doubles for $38 with breakfast. Exploring the Crac: The castle is open every day but Tuesdays and public holidays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the winter and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the summer. The entrance fee for foreigners is 300 Syrian pounds (about $6.50). A guide or a guidebook is suggested, as no explanatory signs are provided in the castle. Guide fees are negotiable -- aim for 500 Syrian pounds (about $10). The gift shop near the entrance sells a brochure for 200 pounds (about $2.75) that includes a bit of the castle's history and a do-it-yourself tour. Highly recommended: a flashlight for illuminating dark corners and sturdy shoes for negotiating uneven paving stones. Incidentals: The Crac has several clean bathrooms and a cafe serving tea, coffee, soft drinks and Middle Eastern snacks. Information: Go to the Syrian Ministry of Tourism's Web site, www.syriatourism.org, or call Karnak Tours at 963-11-231-1493 or 963-11-231-6136.
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