Tuesday 26th January - Krak des Chevaliers to Hama

We shouldn’t really have been disappointed that it was cloudy today as we’ve been lucky with the weather during our travels, helped by the late arrival of winter in both Syria and Jordan.  However, it did take the edge of my enjoyment of Krak des Chevaliers, which I had been looking forward to since we decided to go through Syria.  It wasn’t that the castle didn’t live up to its billing as the most complete Crusader castle in existence (TE Lawrence called it “The finest castle in the world”), it was just that I had perhaps built up the expectation too much in my mind.

Having watched the First Overland film, in which six Oxbridge graduates drove two Series I Land Rovers from the UK to Singapore and back in 1952 and visited Krak on their way, I had visions of the castle sitting in splendid isolation.  Whilst today it still commands impressive views over the valley through the Jabel Ansariyya, the surrounding village spoils the outlook somewhat, as does the road around the base of the castle. 

Having said all this, if you are ever in Syria you really should go as 800 years seem to have had little effect on the structure, perhaps because the castle never fell due to siege.

After exploring all the nooks and crannies of Krak, we then took the back roads up into the Jabel Ansariyya hills as we headed north in order to visit Hosn Suleiman, which proved more time consuming that we thought.  Road signs were conspicuous by their absence, as were place names, and there were a lot more roads and villages than marked on our map.  We had to keep stopping to check we were still on the correct road which, surprisingly, more often than not we were.  Also, Camel Trophy Land Rovers aren’t really designed with twisty mountain roads in mind, but we got there in the end (with a sense of satisfaction that we actually managed to find the 2nd century AD Roman temple).

Little is known about the temple, but it is still an imposing structure contained within a walled compound composed of huge stone blocks (some measuring 5m by 3m). 

Four decorative gates provide access to the enclosure, with the temple remains in the centre.

A second temple is nearby, but is in a poorer state of preservation.

Having had enough of sightseeing for the day, we headed to Hama and the same cheap backpacker place we had stayed in a month ago where the rooms are well equipped with a fridge and satellite TV (and are better than a lot of the more expensive hotels in which we’ve stayed during our time in Syria and Jordan).