9 Days
Arrival – Transfer to Damascus – overnight at the hotel.
Dinner in a restaurant then overnight in Damascus.
The history of this stronghold is long: the Phoenicians had already fortified the place, Alexander the Great seized it, as well as the Byzantines a few centuries later. It is the Crusaders who, in the twelfth century, will give the castle its current appearance. At the time, it was called “Château de Saône” (named after a crusader). Its current name was only awarded in 1957, commemorating Saladin’s seizure of the place in 1188.
Marat was the northernmost important city of ancient Phoenicia and a rival of nearby Arwad.