Tartus

Tartus was Tortosa, the last crusader foothold on the mainland. The Templars' cathedral of Our Lady still stands, plain and enormous, and the old town grew inside the walls of their fortress, so that people today live in the keep and dry laundry over the moat.

Arwad, a mile offshore, is the only inhabited island in Syria: a fishing village of narrow lanes, boatbuilders and one fish restaurant that is worth the crossing.

Tartus works as the coastal night on a route that comes down from the Krak. Amrit, the Phoenician sanctuary with its cut-stone pools, is fifteen minutes south.