In the course of traveling through all of the sites mentioned in the previous post, I spent a few nights in the coastal cities of Latakia (Arabic “al-Ladqiyye”) and Tartous.
Latakia is on the northern coast of Syria, and is an important and bustling port city:
I naively thought that I’d be able to catch some good views of the water, but after arriving there I realized that the nice beaches are north of the city (near the more luxury hotels), and that the city’s coastline is mostly taken up by port operations:
On the other hand, Tartous, further south, has a much more wide-open coastline. It turned out to be quite a pleasant place to spend some time, especially since it’s famous for its delicious seafood:
I took a couple of side-trips during my time at Tartous. One was to Krak des Chevaliers, perhaps the most famous Crusader castle in all of Syria:
The other trip was to Arwad, an tiny island city about 3 km from the coast, known from written records in the 2nd millennium BC and still today containing remains of the ancient Phoenician walls. Nowadays it is also home to a market and various fish restaurants, as well as some old-fashioned boatmakers:
The boat ride to Arwad is just about 15-20 minutes long and was a pleasant highlight of the trip:
