Al-Kahf Castle

Inland from Tartus, in the Sheikh Badr district, on a narrow ridge between two deep valleys. The castle was built around 1120 and sold to the Ismailis in 1138. It became the centre of the Ismaili mission in Syria: Rashid al-Din Sinan used it as base and retreat, died there in 1193 and was buried on the site.

Getting there

By car from Tartus on the mountain road toward Sheikh Badr. It lies 30 km southeast of Marqab Castle. The distance looks short on a map. The road winds, so allow for that. The last stretch is narrow and full of bends, and it fogs over in winter.

How long it takes

An hour and a half. Getting in means walking: the only entrance is a narrow path running halfway down the steep northern slope, and it is invisible from outside.

What is there

The castle runs east to west, following the line of the ridge. At the west end is a flat outer bailey 170 metres long, empty except for the outer wall and a bastion at the far end. From there the ground rises toward the central citadel, which held the living quarters, the storerooms and seven cisterns. Passages and arches cut into the rock still stand in places, with scrub grown over them.

What most people miss

Stop halfway along the entrance path and look down. What made this castle hard to take was not its walls but the two gorges beside it; the architecture only finishes what the ground had already done. It was the last Ismaili stronghold in Syria to surrender to the Mamluks, taken by Baybars in 1273. Under the Ottomans it served for a time as a prison, and it was pulled down in 1816.