conventional tourism in Lebanon

One very strong lesson I am learning from my first couple of months of nomadism is that I must slow down!  My last post here was in Bulgaria, since which time I have taken an overnight bus to Istanbul, a flight from there to Beirut, and spent nearly two busy weeks seeing the Lebanon - with no time to write up my adventures in here.  Even now, a part of me wants to be out on the streets of the fascinating city of Beirut, but I know I have to record some of my adventures in here before I depart tomorrow night to Ethiopia!!

I shall start here with the more 'conventional' side of a visit to Lebanon, being the amazing remnants of the country's rich and varied history.  My head is still spinning from the stories of Phoenicians, Romans, Crusaders, Umayyads, Ottomans, Mamluks...  & it's not just stories, but the visible remains of those different epochs, including the ruins at Baalbek of which the temple of Bacchus, above, is only one part.  A UNESCO World Heritage site, these are apparently the best Roman ruins in the world, better even than those in Rome itself.

There are other Roman ruin sites to visit (such as those in Byblos), but you also come across relics in other places, for example just a few blocks away from my hostel in Beirut is an apartment block with a set of Roman baths at the entrance.  Apparently if you own land here and find remnants of other buildings, you are at liberty to simply dig them up so as to free the land for your own purposes, but thankfully some people do value history and choose to preserve them.  I was told that the oldest known stone circle was found in this country, but when archaeologists came to carry out a detailed investigation they were frustrated (and no doubt very saddened) to find that the evidence had been lost or destroyed in the course of the land's development. 

There are Crusader castles, from the very small one in the sea at Sidon on the left here - which can't have deterred any potential invaders, surely? - to the enormous and very impressive one dominating the city of Tripoli in the north.  There are the Umayyad ruins in Anjar, a Roman aqueduct at Nahr El Kalb with nearby bridge which our guide told us was Roman, but most search results tell me dates from the Mamluk era.  There are monasteries, some hidden away deep in rocky valleys, others in the middle of towns, several statues of the Virgin May on hilltops, and of course mosques. 

There are natural sights to see here too, including the awe-inspiring Jeita Caverns, the upper level viewed from walkways and the lower from boats, but photographs prohibited at both levels, sadly.  Photos specifically of the amazing mosaics are also prohibited inside Beirut's Villa Audi Mosaic Museum, but the lady showing me around this private collection did allow me to take a few 'general' shots such as this one.  The mosaics are spectacular; apparently originating from various Mediterranean countries, purchased in European 'antiquities markets' in the early part of the twentieth century and then shipped to the Audi family in Beirut.

Speaking of which ... completely out of order but sadly I didn't get time to write about the magnificent sights of Plovdiv before I left Bulgaria - this is a picture from there of a part of the floor of the Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis, a large building FULL of mosaics, some of them constructed on top of earlier mosaics which are therefore only partly visible.  There are hundreds of birds depicted in the mosaics there, of many different species, and I learned that for early Christians, birds held a number of symbolic meanings.  For example peacocks (as in the middle of this picture) signified immortality, and ducks represented providence and vigilance.  They concluded that the colourful flock of mosaic birds which once filled the nave of this historic church building may have represented the Garden of Eden!

But back to the Lebanon ... where another of my visits was to the Valley of the Cedars, survivors of the ancient Cedars of Lebanon, apparently the most highly prized building material of the ancient world.  The forest is said to contain 375 individual trees, two claimed to be over 3,000 years old, ten over 1,000 years old.  This is also where the country gets the symbol on its flag.  There is evidence of disease on quite a few of the trees, including the one which was the model for the country's flag - now sadly reduced to half a cedar tree, and seeing it you can't help but reflect on the sad state the country is in.

There is not much tourism in the country at present, partly I suppose due to the safety warning that many governments, including my own, have in place.  However I can't see that it is any less safe than, say, New York City ... and this is a good time to come here, in part due to the lack of tourists and in part because the country needs your money!