LEBANON

I had long wanted to go to Lebanon, but always had concerns about how easy and safe it would be. I had met a guy in Sudan who had been often, and encouraged me to ‘just book it’. I took the plunge and it was surprisingly easy to organise: British Airways ran a daily flight out to Beirut, and hotels could be booked online like anywhere else. When I told people I was going there, however, they were worried about the threat of potential terrorism. But I didn’t feel in danger at any point while I was there other than from the insane city traffic and lack of pavements (it’s not a city for pedestrians). In fact while I was out there there was a terrorist attack in central London near where I work, so I was actually probably safer in Beirut.

Lebanon is half the size of Wales. It’s remarkable how much is contained in this small area. There are lots of mountains (the Mount Lebanon range), and so lots of sheltered valleys which, together with long summers and wet winters, create perfect conditions for growing all kinds of fruit and vegetables. The coastline is stunning and originally home to the seafaring Phoenicians. The proximity of this coast to the mountains has led to the claim that you can ski in the morning and sit on the beach in the afternoon although I wasn’t there long enough to do either. Beirut itself was once a cosmopolitan city, ‘the Paris of the Middle East’, that attracted the rich and famous, including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton obviously, who seemed to be everywhere in the sixties.

This of course all changed with the civil war and many parts of the city still wear the scars from this vicious conflict. There is still a clear demarcation between the two sides in central Beirut known as the Green Line and it was the centre of the action. Many of the buildings along it remain shelled and pockmarked with bullets.

One of the most notorious events of the war was the Battle of the Hotels and the Holiday Inn (above), on the Green Line, is stll boarded up and empty. Some places like the museum Beit Beirut (below) have made a feature of the bullet holes.  

But there is a lot of new building work, most of it funded by Arab money. I’m sure there are some lovely areas in the city, but I found most of these new glass and steel constructions close to the Green Line to be unimaginative with no features that pay tribute to the incredible history of this place.

And the relatively new ‘blue’ mosque also left me cold – zero character and has nothing on its namesake in Instanbul.

I love the food of the Levant, and was determined to find a tour that I could do on my first day so that I knew where to go to eat afterwards. I booked a day-long one that was quite expensive so I had high expectations but it was actually quite disappointing for the most part. We wasted a lot of time in shops being encouraged to buy things like olive tree products (imported from Italy) or honey (which I wouldn’t be allowed to take home), rather than eating food. We also bizarrely sat in an expensive café for an hour with no food or drink provided – I think the idea was we would buy it ourselves which is a bit cheeky considering how much we had paid for the tour. Of the stops where food was provided, there were some misses (a ton of whipped cream on a sickly pancake being the low point), but below are some of the hits.

We had breakfast at the Armenian Ichkhanian Bakery that specialises in the delicious lahmadjouns. I tried two sorts, a spicy one and a pomegranate one, both extremely good. I was also intrigued by the manti they usually make each day, but it was too early in the morning to try some. Manti is one of those dishes that has a history all across the East, near and far. It is typically some kind of dumpling, the Armenian ones are small and usually served with yoghurt.

We went for falafel wraps at Falafel Abou El Ziz. Freshly-made falafel with a choice of fillings – I chose what I thought was beetroot but is actually turnip ‘chips’ that have been soaked in beetroot juice. So good, I came back here later on in the week.

One of the best stops was an accident. We walked past a man shucking and selling what he called oysters although the meat inside was unlike any I had seen. Whatever, they were fresh and delicious and I think our guide was a bit put out that we were enjoying these more than the whipped cream thing.

We went to Boubouffe Brasserie and had a beef shawarma sandwiches. The meat is grilled on charcoal (I assume it’s not rotated as shawarma traditionally are), and served with grilled tomatoes on lovely bread. I was thinking about this sandwich a long time afterwards, but it was too far away for me to go back there later in my trip, and they were quite expensive. There were lots of little shops selling them near my hotel so, despite being slightly intimidated by a lot of men standing around inside, I went in one and bought an even more delicious and considerably cheaper version.

I feel the tour would have benefited from more ‘street’ stops like the roadside carts selling almonds.

This unassuming place was the famous Hanna Mitri ice cream parlour which had existed in this building since 1949, and was still run by the same family. It stayed open all through the war, and you can see the bullet holes on the wall. The ice cream is all hand-made, with nothing artificial added, and is very delicious. I had pistachio and I went back a couple of days later and had a rosewater-flavoured one. I was lucky, Mitri Moussa who owns the shop and makes all the ice cream, will not sell to anyone he considers unworthy. Sadly, the family has now had to leave this building as it was badly damaged in the 2020 explosion, but I believe they have re-opened in new premises. I’m sure the ice cream tastes just as good, but without the ambience of 70 years of turbulent history.

We finished the day in a small restaurant tasting unmemorable food, but I did get to try the aniseed-flavoured arak which I quite liked despite its name meaning ‘perspiration’ in arabic. A mixed day as far as the food goes, and it really was a bit of a rip off, but I did enjoy walking about with someone who knew the city, and I did get some tips for food stops later in the week. I wouldn’t recommend this tour though, I’m sure there are better ones.

I spent a calming day in the Qadisha Valley. On the way we stopped for coffee and I chatted to a girl who worked for the International Red Cross. She had previously been posted to Afghanistan, but had to leave as the presence of westerners endangers the ordinary people there. Now she was based in the relatively safe Beirut. We passed the striking ruins of Mseilha Fort but we didn’t have time to stop and explore which was disappointing.

The valley is home to some very old Christian monasteries and we went to see the 13th century Qozhaya monastery, who own a lot of the surrounding land. The monastery itself is interesting, but I’m ashamed to say the highlight for me were the toilets, and the spectacular view of the lush valley below.

We went on to Bsharri, to the burial place and museum of the poet, writer and artist Kahlil Gibran – he of the ‘if you love somebody let them go’ fame and one of the bestselling poets of all time. He had spent most of his working career in America but had wanted to be buried here near his birthplace.

We had a very nice and generous lunch and then went to the Cedars of God park, one of the last remaining forests of a tree that had originally grown all over Mount Lebanon. So many had been chopped down by the ship-building Phoenecians and then the Romans, and the numbers have never really recovered. It doesn’t help that they grow so slowly although they do live for a very long time once established.

The trees themselves have such a sculptural quality. In fact, some of them had beautiful carvings on their trunks. It was a bit disappointing that there were so few of them.

Back in Beirut, I did my evening walk along the Corniche as the Lebanese like to do. I liked watching the men down below trying to fish off the slippery rocks. I was so busy staring at what was going on that I didn’t notice a hole in the street and fell into it. Luckily it wasn’t too deep and it was only my dignity that was hurt, made worse by a group of teenagers nearby who couldn’t stop laughing. I scuttled back to my hotel in embarrassment.

I joined a trip to Baalbek to see the fabulous Roman ruins. We drove through the Bekaa valley and on the way we stopped at Anjar, site of the impressive Umayyad city ruins. Outside the gates was a lady with a basket of za’atar manakish that she had made herself. Such a simple but beautiful thing: I am sure I could eat it for breakfast every day. It was by far the best thing I ate while I was in Lebanon.

As we got nearer the mountains that border Syria, we passed an enormous refugee camp for those fleeing the civil war. There are now over a million refugees in Lebanon, which make up a quarter of the population in this tiny country.

We were a small group – apparently some visitors are put off because of the proximity to the Syrian border. It’s also a Hezbollah stronghold. In fact I was asked by a friendly stall owner quite seriously if I wanted to buy a Hezbollah t-shirt.

Outside the ruins – a completely legitimate Pepsi vendor.

I was truly blown away by the Baalbek ruins. The site was first settled in the third century BCE by the Phoenicians as a stopping point on their route from Tyre to Damascus. The town gets its name from their sun god, Baal, who was worshipped here along with his consort Astarte. The Greeks came after as usual, and the Egyptians, but it was the Romans who really did something spectacular with this place, building pagan temples to Bacchus and Jupiter among others. Given the subsequent history of this area including occupation by the Byzantines, the Arabs, and the Mongols, a few earthquakes, plus the recent civil war, they are in remarkably good condition.

The elaborate remains, the mountainous backdrop and the emptiness made this a very special day. If this were anywhere else there would be crowds of tourists. But here we almost had it to ourselves, even the guards looked half asleep.

I finshed inside the Temple of Bacchus, climbed up the steps and outside onto the colonnade as the local muezzin’s call to prayer echoed around. It should have been an incongruous noise in this pagan temple, but it was quite moving.

This is Cleopatra apparently, floating in the river, clutching the asp that killed her.

On the way back we visited a Lebanese vineyard to try some very nice wine and look at their impressive, but slightly creepy cellars. I chatted to a guy who was part of a club that aimed to get a passport stamp for every country in the world. He had just paid a lot of money for someone to sneak him over the border into Syria, stamp his passport, then come back straightaway within the space of a few minutes. I understand the challenge, but it seems such a waste to chase the stamp and not experience something of the country beyond.

My last day in Beirut was spent wandering around, going to museums and revisiting some food places. The traffic in the city is really bad: I’ve never seen so many aggressive drivers and they make no allowances at all for pedestrians. At one crossing, it took ages for the ‘green man’ to appear, and then I had nanoseconds to run across this very busy and wide road to the other side before the impatient cars started moving.

I sought refuge in MIM – an Aladdin’s Cave of rare mineral stones. Set in a basement, it’s a wonderfully cool escape from the noise and heat above. As I was the only visitor, it became a very bizarre and comical experience as five friendly, but overly vigilant, security guards followed me around the whole time. If I walked round a gemstone, they walked round with me. If I went back to look at something again, they came back with me. To be fair, the stones are so beautiful that it was very tempting to shove some in my bag. The experience ends in a dark space where there’s a video telling the story of fish fossils that I watched sitting on a squashy bean bag. It’s all a bit trippy but very relaxing.

I love the National Museum of Lebanon. It houses a wide range of artefacts from the complicated and colourful history of this tiny country. The museum is not so large though that it feels overwhelming, I was able to see pretty much everything in a few hours. And I like that it was all objects found in Lebanon – I think that’s what national museums should be.

The museum also has a remarkable survival story from the civil war. It was on the frontline between the warring sides (Museum Alley as it was known) and its vulnerability meant it had to close. Maurice Chehab and his wife worked hard to protect the treasures: many were stored in the basement which was then sealed up; those too big to move were encased in concrete; some were stored at other locations in Lebanon to prevent them being looted. He also put out rumours that all the treasures had been sent away to put off potential theft.

After the war, a lot of the treasures had been lost, and those that survived had inevitably suffered environmental damage, but were still intact. Ironically the only ones that were looted were the ones that had been relocated for safety. The hole in the Good Shepherd mosaic above was caused by shell damage, but the majority of the mosaics have survived undamaged by this latest chapter in the country’s turbulent history.

I found the city a really interesting place definitely, but not sure if ‘I heart Beirut’. I did love the surrounding countryside however, and if I were to go back there, I would spend more time exploring outside of Beirut, and some of the other ancient ports like Tyre, Byblos and Sidon. I would also like to try more of the delicious food, and lots more manakish of course!