Saida

In an effort to enjoy Lebanon a bit more, we decided to do something that I always enjoy… Archeological frolicking! Although we have been to Sidon numerous times, we haven’t yet been to the Sea Castle. While I often notice that most of Lebanon’s historical treasures aren’t very well protected, the Sea Castle is an exception. Not only do they have a ticket booth and a fence, they have given it that little added bit of protection that can only come by never actually opening the gates.

The ticket booth seems to be staffed on a complex rhythm synchronized to the flight patterns of migratory fruit bats. No ripe bananas, no ticket, and that’s the way it is. Fortunately, the bats were flying that morning, so we were able to get in. I did notice with some amusement, that the booth attendant was adamant that the admission price was 4,500LL, but the price on the ticket was clearly printed as 4,000LL. Whatever. If it keeps the bats happy, I’m happy.

I find this castle to be one of the more interesting crusader establishments in Lebanon. It was built in the 13th century to help fortify the city and its port against all those nasty, evil Muslims who had conspired to be there before them. Of course, to be fair the Muslims stole it from the Greeks, who happened to be there before them, who stole it from the Persians, who happened to be there before them, who stole it from the Phoenicians, who happened to be there before them, who stole it from the Neolithic natives who really were there first. That being said, the Phoenicians were committing terrible violations of animal rights against the indigenous population of murex snails to steal their purple dye, so the Phoenicians had it coming.



As with most crusader establishments, it was low on art, and high on defensibility. Still though, some flourishes were visible.





Among the favorite crusader techniques was the embedding of slices of Roman columns to reinforce the walls.



One thing I hadn’t seen before was a rather creative use of marble columns as moldings in door jams. Doubtless this did a great job of keeping out the draft and raising the resale value of the property.



As we were there during high tide on a windy day there were some exhilarating waves breaking against the seaside boundary of the castle. We took some great video and interior pictures, but I’m not posting any of it here because of all the plotting, identity thieving weirdos who read this blog. No, I don’t mean you.

Anyway, I did get a bit cranky over one aspect of heritage management. If you really care about preserving your history, why would you leave iron cannon out in an area that is constantly receiving salt water spray from the ocean? Wouldn’t you think that a tad likely to shorten the lifespan?



I realize that once they build up a rust crust that they are fairly stable, but still. If you don’t want to be nice to them, I’ll be more than happy to take one off your hands. I’ll just wait until the migratory bats of moved on, back my 12 year old car down the causeway, pop one in the trunk, and you’ll never even know I was there…