When we woke in the morning, one of the first things I did (as I waited for Dania to wake up) was to go out on the balcony to see what we couldn't see the night before. The Wadi Al Nadara (Valley of the Christians) area and the actual village where we stayed, Meshtaye, first of all, is in stark contrast to what we saw the day before as we drove from Damascus to Palmyra and then on to the wadi. It was fertile, green and rain had actually fallen before we arrived! Plus, the view of Crac was pretty impressive. I had read somewhere that we could walk from the hotel to Crac; however, just looking up at where we’d have to go, I knew immediately that such a walk/hike was not in the cards for a half-day venture!
Once Dania roused herself, we headed again for the dining room for a typical Syrian breakfast: bread, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, juice and coffee. Then, ready for another day of adventure, we first of all walked to St. George monastery of Homeyra that was about a mile slightly up the way from the hotel. That we could hike!
The establishment of the monastery dates back to the sixth century during the reign of Emperor Justinian. Many believe that "Homeyra" derives from the Greek word for "torrent," because the area is subject to torrential rains in the winter. Others believe that the monastery is built over the ruins of a pagan temple dedicated to the god “Homeyra." Whatever the truth is, what we eventually found, after going into the currently used sanctuary that dates from the 19th century, looked pretty old to me! The "new" church is considered to be on the "third" floor; but for our purposes it was on street level. A very kind monk guided us down to the 2nd and then 1st floors, the bottom of which was the original sanctuary and really just a cave with separate cells for the monks. I would imagine on a hot day, it would be THE place to be!
So, curious about who St. George was, I have done just enough research to know that he was born to a Christian noble family during the late third century between about 275 AD and 285 AD, in Lydda, Palestine. His father Geronzio was a Roman army official from Cappadocia and his mother from Palestine. They were both Christians and from noble families of Anici (which means "cannot be defeated").
When he was 14 he signed up to be a soldier in Diocletian’s army. At some point, after George made a name for himself in the army, Diocletian arrested all Christians to include George, who continued to profess his belief in Jesus. So, Dio had no choice and beheaded him along with all the others. As a martyred Roman Christian, he is the saint of various countries, two of which are England and Palestine.
His other claim to fame is the 11th century myth/legend of his slaying the dragon, a story that seems to have been brought back to Europe by the Crusaders: A dragon makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of "Silene" (modern Cyrene?) in Libya or the city of Lydda (now a suburb of Tel Aviv), depending on the source. The people of the city have to divert the dragon from its nest from time to time to collect water. So, each day they offer the dragon a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a girl must go instead. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, the one chosen is the princess. The monarch begs for her life to no avail. She is offered to the dragon, but, lo and behold, George comes to her rescue. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the cross, slays it and rescues the princess. The grateful citizens abandon their ancestral paganism, convert to Christianity, and everyone lives happily ever after or at least until 1949…..if in fact this all occurred in Lydda. Anyway, many of the iconostasis (like that word? fancy, framed icon paintings) in the older part of the church are of him taking care of the dragon.
Satisfied with our early morning sojourn, we walked back to the hotel where we hopped a cab up the steep road to Crac des Chevaliers. Our driver had obviously driven up before, because he had no qualms about going pretty fast around the sharp turns in the narrow road and through what I considered to be pretty heavy pedestrian traffic in the village. We discovered, once we arrived, that the village down below Crac that we had just sped through was where the original inhabitants of Crac had been forced to move when the French came in to renovate the entire fortress in the early 1900s.
Like at Palmyra, we hired a guide to walk us through the entire fortress and explain what we were seeing. Walid was a very interesting man who couldn’t have been much older than 50, but who had the worst set of teeth I think I’ve ever seen! Perhaps he’d never been to a dentist in his life?? Plus, of course, smoking hadn’t helped. Anyway, he was knowledgeable about Crac because his grandparents and parents had lived there until forced to leave.
It’s such a massive structure that it housed an incredible number of horses and men (apparently no women were allowed until later and even then only in one particular tower). Wandering through the entire structure, Walid filled us in on its history, starting with the fact that Crac had been built on the side of an ancient fort called the "castle on the slope,” later to be renamed "the Kurdish castle" because a Kurdish garrison was built there in 1031 by the Emir of Homs. So, we started at that oldest spot with Kurdish architectural influence and moved throughout what I think was the entire interior fortress.
Both Nuraldin and his brother Saladin considered taking it during the Crusades, but, after giving it the once-over, realized that it was way too well fortified to be taken! In fact, it was only through trickery, during one of the last crusades, that the Mamluk, al-Zahir Baibars (or al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari) assaulted it for a month with huge 600 kg stones before breaking into the fortress' outer perimeter. But even having broken through the outer wall didn’t work. They couldn't get all the way inside.
The 300 defenders inside had supplies for 5 years and they only finally gave in, in exchange for safe conduit, after being tricked by a forged letter from the count of Tripoli ordering them to do so. Trickery and lies were a part of war in those days as they were during the Bush administration. The only difference is that in those days leaders would lie to the enemy, not to their own people!
It was fun walking through the place pretending to be a damsel in distress. I’ll end our 4-hour stay at Crac with some photos, the funniest of which is Dania squatting in a deep hole that was used to store olive oil!
History really hit me right in the face as we walked up a steep staircase (that would NOT exist in the US without guardrails!) to where Richard the Lionheart looked out of his room window. This is what he saw:
- View directly below his window -
- View of the countryside down from Crac -
All in all, Crac des Chevaliers was pretty amazing. Since returning home, I have begun reading more about the Crusades, Netflixing good documentaries on the subject and especially about this area of Syria.
We had asked the taxi cab driver if he’d pick us up and then drive us to Homs so that we could take the bus back to Damascus. When Dania had first made these arrangements, I kept thinking to myself, “There’s no way this guy’ll show up and actually agree to drive us the 45 minutes to Homs for the small amount of money they had agreed upon.” Amazingly enough, as we descended the final steps over the drawbridge, there he was! This kind of thing happened a lot while I was in Syria.
The drive to Homs in daylight was great because it gave me an opportunity to see what we’d passed by the night before. Again, the area in between Damascus and Aleppo that includes Homs and Hama is so much more fertile and green than anything I remember from Aleppo and what surrounds Damascus. I guess it is equivalent to the central part of California – Syria’s breadbasket. Anyway, we made it to Homs and the bus depot and even boarded a bus within 20 minutes of having arrived. We had “entertainment” the whole way back to the capital: videos of what looked like old-time Syrian television on the lines of the Ed Sullivan Show. The other “impressive” thing about our bus trip was that we not only had a bus driver (dah!), but also an assistant who floated up and down the aisle initially serving water and then who knows what he did besides change the dvds. Seeing this young guy made me realize that in a “socialist” country like Syria, everyone has a job – no matter how trivial. Perhaps this also explains why the taxi cab driver was back to pick us up. He had nothing better to do with his time. So, why not go back up the steep hill, pick up the Americans, drive them to Homs, and practice his English along the way. He even offered us his business card when he dropped us. Turns out he goes to Beirut during the work week and comes home to his family on Thursday evening for the weekend.
By the time we arrived back in Damascus (after eating shawarma [thinly sliced lamb with “secret sauce,” pickles, and in this case even fried potatoes!, wrapped up in pita bread] at the bus station) we were ready NOT to be tourists for a while. I think it was that late afternoon that we walked up to Dania’s souq, bought some stuff for dinner and found a dvd “store” (it probably measured 2 feet wide by 6 feet deep AT MOST) as we walked around looking at other things. This place was amazing, because first-run movies at home were available for less than $5! We bought Milk and Burn After Reading, and that’s the way we spent that evening – having a quiet dinner and watching movies on Dania’s laptop!
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