Lebanon

Half terms here and we took the opportunity to visit Lebanon which is only just over an hour away on Egyptair. Queuing up to go through the scanner at the airport, a rather large Lebanese lady (LLL) kept invading young Ts personal space, crushing up to him, young T would move up, and LLL moved into the space, this kept on going till the whole queue was concertined into about 3m length. This had us all in fits of laughter.

We landed in Beirut in the evening and after some very happy security guards in the airport found the taxi man from the hotel and drove at high speed, honking the horn into the city. Outside the hotel, just off the main shopping street, we had someone shout "

Hello",

it was the head of the primary school - small world. He had been in Beirut a couple of days and recommended a Lebanese restaurant just around the corner which we duly went to and enjoyed.

We woke up to headlines in the Daily Star newspaper "Iran says it will retaliate if Israel attacks Lebanon". Great! no wonder the flights were cheap - Actually Israel have been making some noises recently but that is nothing new in this part of the world.

After going to sleep to the cacophony of horns (the Lebanese use their horns more than the Egyptians) we awoke to a beautiful cool morning. First day we hired driver and his "slightly used" Mercedes and headed over Mount Lebanon into the Bekaa Valley to go to the Roman ruins in Baalbek. Beirut is a city of 2m, crushed in due to the geography of the limestone hills rising steeply behind the city. The taxi worked its way through small side streets till we hit the old green line (one of the boundaries during the war) and then we started rising up Mount Lebanon, higher and higher through regular army checkpoints ("no pictures" said the driver). Finally we made the top which had the remnant snow from earlier in the year and out of the mist we passed down and could see the fertile flat plains of the Bekaa valley.

At the summit, the misty Bekaa Valley and the mountains of Syria in the distance.

We were slightly apprehensive about the trip over the mountain, the Bekaa Valley is the stronghold of Hizbollah and is where a lot of the hostages were detained, although by all accounts this is not a problem anymore. We said as soon as they saw our kids behaving they would have second thoughts. More and more we saw the Hizbollah green and yellow flags and posters and billboards of austere Shia clerics and chaps in army fatigues, presumably martyrs to the cause. Arriving in Baalbek we passed a Palestinian refugee camp and pictures of Yasser Arafat.

Hizbollah is supported by the Shias in Iran and we saw a few Iranian flags and there was a beautifully ornate Shia mosque (dedicated to the daughter of Hussain, the first Mosque we visited in our post recently), very different to the Sunni ones in Cairo, being covered in beautiful tiles and having a few pictures of Khomeni inside (as I understand it this is not normal to have pictures of anyone in a mosque). I tried to find some info on this most of the internet but its surprisingly devoid of info. finally in the centre of Baalbek we reached the fantastic roman ruins.

Hizbollah road side "adverts" and flags on the way to Balbeek

The ruins are some of the best and most complete in the world, they consist of the several temples, and several phases of building. First you get to walk up an impressive set of steps to the main Temple Complex of Jupiter.

The family on the steps with Syria in the distance and snow still on the hills..

The site boasts the thickest columns in the world and some of the biggest building blocks ever cut and used by man. Its a remarkable site, moreso as we were old 4 of say 10 people there.

Mrs T with a fantastically craved column top and some nice inscription

The main temple of Jupiter had this alter in the middle that the boys climbed (left photo).

The washing area and one of the largest columns

One of the front towers and the column bases.

Impressive columns still standing and some nice decoration.

The smaller temple, Bacchus, actually bigger than the Acropolis in Greece.

J can be seen pushing this column - "I didn't do it"

We stopped to have a snack and shopped for some souvenirs from a Palestinian chap who wanted to know if we came from Bristol - because he had heard of it! Its was really quite weird seeing these highly political, militaristic Hizbollah billboards in amongst the vineyards of the Lebanon wine industry. These billboards are interspersed with plumbing and bridal clothes shops and all manner of everyday life. The closer you get to Beirut the more you realise this country is one of great variety and you see very western and cosmopolitan adverts!!!

A country of high contrast.....

In the eastern foothills of Mount Lebanon we stopped for a tour and taste of Lebanons top wine, Ksara. The tour was interesting and the caves very impressive. After trying several of the wines, trying to look like we knew what we were doing, we purchased a couple of bottles and headed back to Beirut.

Mrs T licking lips inbetween vintages......................

In the evening we took a walk along the Corniche, with most of Beirut running/ power walking or smoking shishas along the wide pathway and ate at a nice fish restaurant, the highlight of which was a flaming lemon!!! (we are still to work out why - but we thought it impressive anyhow).

Next morning we decided to explore Beirut. We started at the Museum, this has some of the world best preserved antiquities. The Egyptians used to trade with the Lebanese and Ramesis II set up shop here so lots have a uniquely Egyptian flavour. Many of the pieces are from Baalbek or Byblos where we were going later. Not a big museum but great quality.

We then took a taxi to the Mall ($10, we were robbed!). Now Lebanese woman are generally stunningly beautiful, and they love their labels and high fashion (my guess is they are like fast sports cars - good to look at but very high maintenance). The Mall was full of Prada, Gucchi and Armani so we had a coffee on some Thrones and left!

The boys picking their first car...

At lunch we had some of the best Sushi we ever tasted at a very posh restaurant - Le Sushi - worth the blowout! Lebanese food and sushi - what a food lovers heaven. We then walked across the city, a beautiful mix of old french style colonial houses, newly designed buildings and tower blocks left over from the war complete with numerous bullet and shell holes.

These are close to the green line where some of the fierce fighting took place during the civil war.

We then walked to the main Mosque, and close to Martyrs square where a couple of years ago Rafik the president was blown up which eventually resulted from the withdrawal of the Syrians.

After stopping for a moral boosting Dunkin Donut we walked through the beautifully rebuilt and restored downtown and found Hamra Street, did bit of shopping and then got back to the hotel for a rest. We ate Lebanese again, more hummus and baba ghanouj and fattoush.

The new downtown

The following day we woke up to torrential rain, a nice change from the sun in Egypt. We had a driver who took us to Byblos along the coast road which looked like something like the south of France. Byblos is one of the oldest continually inhabited places in the world. It has a beautiful greek-like harbour overlooked by a Crusader castle, built on a Roman site built on a Neolithic site. Currently this is an area where a high proportion of Druze live (do not quite know what they are but remember them being one of the militias in the war)

It was great to scramble around by ourselves as we dodged the thunderstorms rolling in from the Med. We tried to visit the church built by St John a crusader but it was closed and it started to rain heavily so we ducked into a coffee shop.

Pictures of the Crusader castle Byblos

The streets were now rivers. With no sign of the rain slowing we "swam" to the car and went to Jeita Caves in the mountains. We actually saw a few tourists here - mainly Lebanese and a few westerners. A short cable car ride to the upper cave system was exciting and we entered one of the largest holes I've been in (with the exception of last Valentines day when I did not buy Mrs T a present!). Stunning with the world largest stalactites. No camera were allowed. It was pretty spectacular. Waiting for a break in the cloud we rushed down the the lower caves which are explored by boat.

Upper cave walk way provided by wikipedia....

Back in Beirut we had some more sushi and tried to find some bacon (the things we do on holiday!) but alas could not.

So a great little break in a very nice little country of tremendous contrasts and great food, OK wine and good beer. Next time we go will be ski season!!