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Arwad is a lively and colorful whose picturesqueness is
quite without artifice. Tartous itself is also worth more than just a
quick visit. Together, the two places could well looked forward to a
tourist future that would make them among the best known resorts on the
eastern Mediterranean. It would not take much: some cash, certainly, to
put one or two good class hotels (the island’s old fort would make a
marvelous "paradox") but above all a bit of imagination from the
municipal authorities and a bit of concern from the local people for the
attractiveness of the places where they live.
Priority has rightly been given to the industrial
development of Tartous. The port was fitted out with loading
installations in record time to enable it to cope with the flew of oil
along a new pipe-line 650 km long from Karatchok. In 1994, there were
1,600 ships, 3,500,000 tons of cargo and in return, a revenue of 6.2
million dollars - an unbeaten record. Might not this kind of vigorous
approach be used in other spheres? Some of the work done, such as the
cleaning of the sea front and the remarkable conversation of the
Crusader cathedral into a museum, gives cause for hope.
The greatest period in the history of Antaradus, as Phoenician port on
the mainland, annexed to the active island base of Aradus (the present
Isle of Arwad) occurred in Byzantine times. The name gradually changed
into Tortosa. Crowds of Christians used to come here on pilgrims to pray
an a chapel which was said to have been dedicated to the Virgin Nary by
Saint Peter, when the Father of the Apostles was on his way from
Jerusalem to Antioch. An ion was placed here, so they say, by Saint Luke
the Evangelist, the same ion that the Convent of Seidnaya today claims
to possess.
Muslim, then Byzantine again around the year 1000, Tortosa was to become
one of the main supply ports for the Crusaders and a military bass of
considerable importance, held by the Templars. In 1188, Salah al Din
reconquered the town, but could not capture the keep, surrounded as it
was by a broad ditch, equipped with advanced engines of war and defended
by the best knights of the Order. Tortosa was to remain in the hands of
the Franks until 1291. The struggle was then an unequal one, and the
last defenders had to flee in a pitiful manner through a postern-gate
can still be seen at the foot of the keep leading straight down to the
sea. Rwad Island (Arwad) was not liberated until 1302.
The few remains of the medieval fortress and its double wall are lost in
the midst of the present-day town and little is left to stir the
imagination. The town itself, however, with its tiny and narrow
passageways, does convey something of the atmosphere of the medieval
city, with square foundations of several towers to be seen on the sea
front, a pointed-arch gateway at the north entrance to the town and some
fragment of arises and some sculpted consoles on one side of a square
that corresponds to the great hall where the Chapter of the Templars
gathered. Not very much in view of the past importance of Tortosa. |
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