Shobak Castle & Little Petra

Today we continue driving further south to Petra. The first stop is Shobak Castle. I vaguely remember my high school project with the sensational title: The First Crusade and the Iraq War; Parallels and Comparisons. The castle was built by Baldwin I, who went from being a crusader to the King of Jerusalem - and of course, it was not without bloodshed. Shobak Castle (known here as Montreal) is built on a steep hill. It looks spectacular, but while I understand why the location is strategically sensible, I don't really understand the town itself: it is completely isolated, and it seems to me that there isn't anything really important nearby that would need defending. But well, maybe I should have paid better attention in the military history lecture...

Not much of the castle remains. Saladin successfully conquered the castle after several sieges, and then it was expanded, rebuilt - and built over. Our guide has finally come to life a bit and tells mostly about Saladin and his successful campaigns. The crusaders don't come off well in these stories, but unfortunately, that seems to have been the reality as well.

Two participants have some difficulty visiting the ruins, they are not sure-footed and extremely slow. I wonder afterwards if that's why we only visited a small part of the castle, and how they plan to explore Petra exactly. There are apparently some interesting paths to discover in the castle, which unfortunately we didn't explore.

Our guide decides that we have enough time to visit Little Petra as well. Admission is free and it's only a few kilometers from Petra. It's significantly smaller than Petra and was also built by the Nabataeans.

The rock formations are very beautiful and you often wonder what the nature has created and what was done by human hands. It's not always easy to tell, which makes it even more exciting! According to our guide, you can compare Little Petra to Las Vegas: the traders would come here to eat, drink, and celebrate after successful days.

In one of the rooms, there are beautiful ceiling paintings to see. Unfortunately, they are gated. Apparently, the representations were removed for religious reasons, as they depicted nude angels and women.

After this day, we go to bed early because tomorrow is all about exploring Petra!