Moussa Castle

Moussa Castle

Moussa Castle is a beautiful building in western Lebanon that has become a symbol of unrequited love. Moussa Castle stands in the Shouf Mountains, about 900 meters above sea level. In 1962, wishing to build a beautiful fortress for his beloved, local resident Moussa Abdel Karim al-Maamari purchased a plot of land and 6,000 stones and set about realizing his dream. The construction was completed in 2005.

Highlights

These days, Moussa Castle is a tourist pilgrimage site and hardly the most visited attraction in Lebanon. Many come here to see the true miracle that man is capable of through the power of love.

Like a real castle, Moussa’s creation has a moat and a lift bridge. The towers and castle walls end in battlements, and cannons are mounted between them. Each stone of which the walls are made has a carved pattern, and none is repeated. They depict fantastic animals, flowers, plants, sun, keys and patterns. Remarkably, all of the stone carvings are done by Moussa himself.

Inside Moussa’s castle, two museums have been created by his hands. One of them is dedicated to cold and small arms, and the other tells about the history of Lebanon and the daily life of its inhabitants. The main museum exhibits here are dolls, which wear national clothes. The castle also displays collections of jewelry and ivory items.

Visitors can purchase Moussa’s book, “The Dream of My Life,” which is sold in print and on CDs. In addition, guests are offered to taste delicious coffee, which is prepared according to a special recipe.

For tourists, Moussa Castle is open daily from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm. The entrance ticket for adults costs $10 and $5 for children.

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History of Moussa Castle in Lebanon

When Moussa was still a schoolboy, he fell in love with a neighbor girl named Saydeh. The chosen girl’s parents rejected Moussa because he was from a poor family. They told the boy that they were saving their daughter for the prince and were ready to hold the wedding only in his castle. Then Moussa decided to build a real castle for his beloved. The young man began to draw the future construction and created its paper model. His classmates laughed at him and his teacher beat him for his “empty” dreams, so Moussa stopped going to school.

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The young man worked as a longshoreman at the port for 6 years and built a castle on a piece of land he bought. He gained skills in stone working by helping his uncle in the reconstruction of the ancient fort in Saida and the construction of columns in front of the National Museum in Beirut.

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Rumors of the amorous builder reached the Lebanese president, he met Moussa and acted as his guarantor for a bank loan. This is how the dream of a Lebanese man in love turned into a national project. It should be noted that the residents of the surrounding villages and invited private craftsmen helped Moussa to build the castle. The main construction took more than 25 years, and about 20 more years it took Moussa to repay the bank loan.

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Moussa’s beloved never married him, but in her old age she visited the palace he built. Moussa is married to another woman and they have four children. Mary helped her husband in the construction and today she serves as a tour guide in the castle and calls herself the best guide for her husband’s soul. And, of course, wife Moussa has a universal answer to provocative questions: “I built the castle together with my husband. And I built it so that there was no room for another woman.”