Crusader Castle

Spring Time Fun Time continued and so we headed off this time to see a Crusader Castle.  In the picture below, in the top right corner, you can see the Dead Sea.  That's pretty cool.  This castle was perched way up on a hill, if you can't tell from this photo of the countryside below.

Lots of the photos I took came out awful, but I didn't care cause I was having such a grand ole time.  There were tunnels and rooms and walkways that all went nowhere, which just made it so much fun to explore with friends.

Sometimes some of us would be up on one level and would look through a hole in the ground to see our friends down below.

Sometimes you'd turn a corner and one of your friends would jump out to scare you.

We climbed up and down and all around.

Room after room with no idea at all what we were seeing.  That's my kind of castle!

Did I mention that we climbed up?

Looking out over the town.

Standing on one part of the castle looking out to the other end of it.  In the green grass between us, there were all kinds of tunnels underneath that we wandered all around.

A kitchen, maybe, with a big fireplace for cooking?

A drain/channel for water.

Lots of times we climbed down a set of stairs just to discover there was nothing at the bottom or at the end of the tunnel or wherever we'd gone.  We got plenty of steps in that day!

Arabic carved into one doorway.

The bust of a statue carved into a stone.  With how ruined this castle was, it was hard to imagine, even with little things like this, what the place looked like in its hey day.

There was lots of jumping out of dark shadows and scaring one another.

And sending Little Miss Fearless into dark holes to see what lied ahead or above or below.

Look, Mom!  I'm in a Crusader Castle!

Looking down a hole to see if we wanted to send Little Miss Fearless down there.  (We didn't.)

However, the light shined in to make one friend turn into Moses with a face of radiant glory.  Crazy things happen in this here Promised Land, I'll tell ya.

Small little relics of former glory days.

We decided to climb up that part...

All these young fearless girls scrambled right up there.

I, however, saw the severe drop of the cliff below me and wasn't sure I could work up the courage to get up there.  They all cheered me on as I worked towards conquering my fears.

I finally made it to the top and sat with them all as we perched atop this hill and looked at the beautiful countryside all around us.  I really thought we took a group selfie up there, but I can't find it now.  Oh well...

A little more of the castle ruins.

Of course I found a pretty door.

Oh here are some of the group pics!  Fun friends!

Photobomb!

Panoramic group selfie!!!

One of the novels I am reading right now takes place here in the Middle East, spanning from Beirut to J-town to Hebron to Petra and up to Damascus.  It was neat reading it and not just recognizing the places it talks about, but being able to now picture them in my mind.  This is a beautiful land with so much rich history.  I'm loving being here and totally digging Spring Time Fun Time!