Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din

Two mighty strongholds in western Syria chart how castle-building evolved during the Crusades. The Crac des Chevaliers, raised by the Hospitaller knights between 1142 and 1271 and extended by the Mamluks, survives as perhaps the finest Crusader castle in existence; Qal'at Salah El-Din, partly ruined, layers Byzantine work of the 10th century beneath Frankish and Ayyubid additions. UNESCO inscribed the pair in 2006 for the dialogue of East and West written in their walls.