Lebanon Flag
The introduction I’ve written for Syria applies almost the same to Lebanon: delicious food, stunning sights, and very nice people! A beautiful and great country! But there was one big difference: Beirut! For me it was kind of a culture shock coming from Damascus and going straightaway to Beirut! I knew I had to expect a more modern, more westernized city, but I didn’t expect such a big difference! It felt almost like home, much more Europian than the Midlle Eastern. Beirut is completely new and modern; because of its sad history almost all of its buildings are recent and skyscrapers dominate the city center. I have never seen so many big, expensive cars in one place, Porsches, Bentleys, Ferraris, all kinds of SUVs and a lot more. But amazingly there are still the old Mercedes Benz used as, mainly shared, taxis. Then there is Beirut’s people! Almost as nice and helpful as Syrians, a little bit prouder, perhaps. Broken English makes way for very good French or good English in some cases. And forget about headscarfs, you won’t see many in Beirut. People dress at least as fancy as in the western world. Stylish bars, restaurants and clubs replace traditional sheesha cafes, cocktails, wine and beer replace tea and parties won’t start before 2am and don’t stop until dawn!!! Beirut souqs have nothing in common with there Syrian “name-mates”, they are modern shopping malls with every kind of fashion store, you find for example in Paris, present. It’s a fantastic place for having a real good time … if you are not looking for an authentic Midlle East adventure and ancient ruins. But don’t forget: It is the Middle East and even though different, it has it’s own authenticy, own culture and a long and intersting history to tell. Dont’t miss it!
And another thing: if you keep your eyes open, you will find older buildings, not beautiful, not very old, but old enough to have been there before the civil war – half destroyed and full of bullet holes. Luckily they will disappear by and by … they are a reminder of Lebanon’s and especially Beirut’s sad and very recent past. Then you shouldn’t miss the National Museum in Beirut! It has a good collection of archeological artefacts and is well worth a few hours of a visit!
Beirut - National Museum
But that’s just Beirut and Lebanon has a lot more to offer than its capital. At the same time Beirut is a perfect “base camp” for doing daytrips to any place of interest in the country. Lebanon stretches about little more than 200 kilometers along the coast and about 35 to 70 kilometers inland, to the Syrian border. That makes any destination reachable from the capital in a very short time. Anyways I prefer staying overnight when visiting different places and did so whereever possible. The few daytrips I made from Beirut to Byblos, Tyre and Sidon, where because a lack of cheap accomodation in those places.
On my first daytrip I went to Byblos, which is just about half an hour away by public transport. The ancient site at Byblos is pretty impressive and, in comparison to the ruins of Syria, pretty well maintained, which was also notable in the price. Anything in Lebanon, from sleeping over eating to sightseeing is much more expensive then Syria. The only thing more or less equal in price is public transport. This is probably due to, even though not visible in Beirut’s city, the many poor people living in the country and there necessity to commute . Arriving at the ancient castle of Byblos, I was actually already pretty sick of visiting more old stones, which I have been doing during my three weeks in Syria. So I didn’t spend too much time there. Instead I preferred to hang out on the nearby beach for a few hours – the first beach on my visit to the Middle East and one of the only few public beaches in Lebanon. Beaches in Beirut are mainly beach clubs and not even sand beaches, where one has to pay about 15USD to spend the day.That would have fairly blasted my budged.
Tripoli
The next day I left Beirut for going to Tripoli where I was going to stay for two days. It’s a relatively small, but very nice city, and a lot poorer and more conservative than Beirut. It reminded more of the cities I visited in Syria. Two days was more than enough for visiting its pretty little souqs, the citadel and Al-Mina, Tripolis corniche, for a few glases of tea and a sheesha at sunset. The fame of Tripolis sweets I can not really share. Of course, its baklava were not bad at all and I had a lot of it, but I’ve had much better sweets in Aleppo and other places in Syria.
From Tripoli I took a minibus to the little Christian town of Bcharre in the Qdisha Valley. What a marvellous place! Surrounded by the highest mountains of Lebanon, which go up to 3000 meters, and at the same time at the top of the valley, it was the perfect place to spend a few days, hiking around and enjoying its peace, quietness and awesome nature. From there it is also possible to hike or hitchhike, to the see the close-by famous cedars and the Qdisha Grotte. Both are less than a two hours walk away and worth visiting.
After a few days of hiking the mountains and the valley, I went by car over the mountains and through the beautiful Bekaa Valley to Baalbek, the “Sun City”. A shame that my time was running out fast, I would have loved to also stay a few days in the Bekaa Valley.
Bcharre
Besides the impressive roman temples Baalbek has not much to offer. It’s a tiny little town with lots of Hezbollah flags waving in the wind of many streets and Hassan Nasrallah posters can be found all over the place. The town itself has not much charm at all, but lies in a beautiful area. I only spend the night there to visit the roman temples in the morning light, without question a must on every trip to Lebanon. They could also be reached from Beirut in about two hours by public transport, which is what most people do.
After my visit to the temples and having some lunch, I took a minibus back to Beirut, where I was going to spend the weekend. From there I also visited two more places on daytrips, Tyre and Sidon. Being in the south of Lebanon, close to the Israelian border, both cities are rather poor and less visited, because of some policital troubles in the past. But they made nice daytrip escapes from Beirut, Tyre for its immense roman hippodrome and the small fishing harbour, Sidon for its sea castle and nice souqs.
Tripoli - Al Mina
Resuming my trip I have to admin that, besides Qadisha Valley, I enjoyed Syria much more than Lebanon, mostly for its ancient authenticity. However, a visit to Syria should always include a few days in Lebanon, to see the differences between two countries which for a long time shared the same history. And if you what you’re up to is good hiking and/or crazy parties, it’s a must!!!
More photos from my travels through lebanon can be found on my accounts on facebook or, in better quality, on flickr.
