Land of Cedars

After transiting a couple of nights in Damascus we took the early bus to Beirut. There was talk of the mountain pass being closed. The driver loaded snow-chains – a welcome omen if the road was to be icy. We passed cars with 30cm coats, and the odd vehicle-shaped snow-mound. All of this was lovely from the comfort of our coach, that is until I had to disembark at the Lebanese border and run through freezing, ankle-high puddles back to Syria because they failed to stamp Weisie’s passport. With the papers properly in order, I zipped up my jacket, put on my beanie and was about to beat a quick retreat to the warmth of our bus when a taxi whizzed by, obliviously covering me head to toe in wet, brown slush. Brrrr. Grrrr.




Beirut was a wonderful place. It was like a central European city with its up-market restaurants, bars and street-side cafés. We found a cosy room with a few mod-cons, including a fridge, and set off for the shops to stock up on supplies. Our supermarket experience was actually quite fun - it was the first one that resembled anything we were used to in the UK/Aus (they even had Tim Tams). And so it was, on the third anniversary of our wonderful relationship, we whiled away a few hours pushing a trolley together along the aisles with irrepressible smiles.

The restored Beirut museum was outstanding – it was interesting to see how many priceless artefacts too big to be moved to safety during the war were sealed up in concrete and ultimately cracked open again and put safely back on display. Whilst the museum survived the war (with the help of restoration), many buildings did not, leaving the old and the new, side by side.




A word for the wise: if you snooze on the bus to Byblos, you end up in Tripoli.

Tripoli was quite a fine place to have lunch, which is all we really did because we wanted to spend the day in Byblos. The old Phoenician port and fortified town were so photogenic. As usual, we had the site to ourselves and, being left to our own devices, picked amongst the potsherds imagining (with the aid of a guide book) what and how life was like for the people who lived there in days of old.




Our day in Byblos was lovely, but the primary reason I came to this region was for the following day – the day we planned to visit the greatest of all ancient Roman sites. Grander than anything in Rome, the ruins were the most beautiful either of us have seen. Blanketed in snow, we had a total of 45 minutes to blaze a trail around the site snapping photos at every opportunity: lion statute here, snow covered mosaic there. Our time was very limited because it took us around 7 hours to get in to and out of the Bekka Valley for reasons discussed below. But I think you will agree, the time and effort were well worth it.




In fact, there is no larger megalithic construction anywhere else in the world - as far as I am aware. Furthermore, I have not come across a reasonable explanation for how the builders of the Jupiter temple pedestal (pictured below) carted the gigantic stones using 2,000-year-old technology. And if that does not bake your noodle, it may interest you to know that whilst there are a handful of commercial cranes in the world capable of lifting stone blocks of the size used in the pedestal, none are capable of simultaneously transporting their loads, except on restrictive rails that would not be able to cover the distance or terrain confronted by the ancient builders!




We both rate this day as equalling our day at Giza. However, we nearly perished on the mountain side in a blizzard when we stopped to tow a broken down, over-loaded car. We only had one snow chain and it kept falling off - it was a truly near death experience. But we did meet a biology student on the way to Baalbek who invited us to his parent’s house for coffee, which we accepted. We did not get to meet his parents who were on Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Later, we met the mayor of Baalbek who sold me a genuine 3,000-year-old Assyrian cylinder seal purportedly discovered on a dig in Iraq (it is legal, although ethically questionable, to buy antiquities in Lebanon).

On our last day in Beirut, we strolled along the Corniche, a sea-front road, which I have recorded in my diary as being “wonderfully refreshing”. We covered several kilometres, making it as far as the “Pigeon Rocks” – a natural rock formation similar to those along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. It was very sad to later hear that the former Prime Minister of Lebanon and a number of his aides were killed by a bomb quite near to the Corniche in a place that we had visited less than five days earlier.