Sidon Sea Castle

Crusader-built island fortress reached by a stone causeway — Sidon's signature landmark

The Sea Castle is what most people come to Sidon to see. It sits on a small islet about eighty metres offshore, joined to the mainland by a fortified stone causeway lined with arches. Built by the Crusaders in 1228 on the site of an earlier Phoenician temple to Melqart, the castle was repeatedly damaged and rebuilt over the centuries — by the Mamluks, by the Ottomans, and most recently restored by Lebanese authorities.

The structure is compact but rewards exploration. Inside the courtyard a small mosque with a domed roof was added in Ottoman times. A staircase leads up to the ramparts, where the views back across the harbour to the old town are some of the best in the city. The walk across the causeway, with the Mediterranean breaking on the rocks below and fishing boats bobbing in the harbour, is half the pleasure of the visit.

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The Crusaders built the castle in 1228 using columns and stones recycled from the Phoenician and Roman city below. Look at the outer walls: thick drums of Roman granite poke horizontally out of the masonry, used as bond stones to tie the rubble courses together. The Mamluks later partly dismantled it to deny it to returning Crusaders, then rebuilt it again — every layer of Sidon's history is literally stacked into the walls.