A placeholder & links covering the whole journey can be found through the link here and below:
Met by Raymond & taken to Tripoli. Wandered round souks, caravanserais and town…
…then toured the Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles at Tripoli.
Set off for the border – completed formalities with ease (apparently) and then went to Krak des Chevaliers, somewhat against Raymond’s will. Superb crusader castle – huge and interesting.
The border crossing from Lebanon to Syria was the only one in which our driver/guide was allowed to take us across the border some distance and was thus the only straightforward one of this trip. But Raymond (whom Daisy has just described as, “oh yeh, he was a bit of an idiot”) did not want to show us Krak des Chevaliers – he wanted to drive past it as he deemed it a lesser place than the Tripoli citadel.
We got our way. Just as well. Krak was both fascinating and stunning-looking.
Coincidentally, I have recently (Spring 2022: at the time of writing this piece) been in correspondence with cousin Adam Green who was commissioned the preceding year to do an illustrative visualisation of Krak. We have enjoyed swapping pictures and tales of our very different Krak experiences. Adam has (even more recently) written up his tale and posted his wonderful illustration on-line - click here or the embedded link below.
Then went on to Homs where we were met by Abdel who wants to start early tomorrow so we eat in the hotel and early to bed
All of the photos from our trip can be seen here or below:
