What do you know of Lebanon and Beirut? Let’s be honest: you’ve probably only read this far
because you thought the title was ‘Lesbians’. What I knew (or thought I knew) was a place ripped apart by fighting, tanks and rubble in the streets, concrete shells of buildings Emmental-ed with bullet holes.
Fanatics draped with AK-47s. And if you should be foolish enough to enter the country… well you are
sure to be taken hostage like Terry Waite and John McCarthy. More like Front Page than Travel Page. A travel page should be telling you about places like this:
A tiny nation combining natural beauty with some of the juiciest history in the world. The best food in the Middle East. A buzzing, invigorated capital city. Skiing, sunshine and the ocean… Welcome to
Lebanon.
The history of Lebanon is jaw-dropping. Byblos is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world
(over 5000 years old). A beautifully preserved Roman street runs alongside relaxed cafés and restaurants in the heart of Beirut. In a central square are 2000-year-old Roman baths, the clever under-floor heating system clear to see. The baths were built, in turn, on the site of Phoenician baths 4000 years old. Today
they are smack-bang in the middle of Beirut city centre.
And then there is Baalbek, a site for which the superlative must have been invented. Its construction
was a startlingly ambitious political statement made by the Romans at the heart of the vital Fertile
Crescent between the Nile and the Euphrates. The largest Roman temple ever constructed, far bigger than
anything in Rome or Athens. The temple of Bacchus is the best preserved temple on the planet. The
mightiest building block ever cut lies nearby. Measuring 20x5x4 metres it weighs 1500 tonnes. The vast
monoliths of Stonehenge are a mere 50 tonnes. 40,000 people would have been needed to shift the ‘Rock
of Fertility’.
The Lebanese are proud people. They are proud of their hospitality and proud of their food and rightly
so. Pepe’s ‘Fishing Club’ restaurant in Byblos is legendary, a frequent haunt of the likes of Brigitte
Bardot, Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando in the 1960’s. Hundreds of photographs testify to its glamorous
clientele. In restaurants you are bombarded with endless plates of mezze (starters): hummus, tabouleh and
fatoush salads, spinach and cheese pastries, flat hot bread and the fabulous baba ghanouche, a smoky
blend of aubergines, tahini, lemon and olive oil. And then they bring the main courses! Ouch. A
cornucopia of decadently sweet pastries and cakes to finish with. The wines of Lebanon are a hidden
jewel. The vines of Chateau Kefraya, Chateau Musar and Ksara are beginning now to be praised
internationally, for Lebanon has an ideal climate: both Mediterranean sunshine and 3000 metre mountains
gathering snow and keeping the land fertile.

How about this for a day in a holiday? A morning’s skiing at Faraya or The Cedars, the afternoon at
one of the most exquisite and important ancient sites in the world, sunset in a café watching the sun slide
into the ocean before strolling around beautiful and friendly downtown Beirut as you select the restaurant
of your choice from the myriad of high quality options available. And then, when your friends boast of Rome’s history or Greek sunshine or skiing in Austria or Parisian cuisine, allow yourself a little smug smile at having found all that rolled into one special little country. Welcome to the horrors of Lebanon.