Beirut Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

This small country, the smallest in the Middle East, has an area of only 10,452 km² but carries a civilization & history of 4,000 years.   Historical Facts:   1)      Lebanon is the modern name of what was called Phoenicia. It is not an Arab country. 2)      Phoenicians built the 1st boat and they were the first to sail ever! They were traders, involved in international trade between the Middle Eastern hinterland, and coun...

I had wanted to visit Lebanon as far back as I could remember.   I recall the images of destruction on television from the '70s and '80s and knew that Lebanon was more than that. I acquired a pass, through work, to anywhere in the Gulf Air network and decided to go to Beirut. My trip started out in Reno, Nevada, where I caught a Southwest 737 to San Diego, with a stop in Las Vegas.  I had worked earlier that day, doing a Flight Attendant check ride from Re...

Its about 4AM and i'm excited as I see early morning Beirut glide past my window below me as the BA Boeing comes in to land. Although I have never been here before, I instantly recognise and name areas of the city by linking them to events and chronicles as recounted by the journalist Robert Fisk through his many reports and books about this front-line city and its tragic gradual destruction. Once out of the airport I walk about 1km to the highway and wave down a classic Merc...

After flying to Syria and spending some time there getting my Iranian visa, checking out different parts of Damascus and smoking lots of hookah, "My that grape is mild!"  I boarded a bus to check out Beirut. The bus I took was not your most modern and after getting shifted around in seats a bit, I finally was shifted to one with very little leg room due to my fellow passenger.  "Thanks for being so considerate buddy....oh well, it isn't that long a trip."  In fact it did ...

El trayecto nocturno desde Damasco a Beirut fue algo pesado, no sólo por el frío que pasé en el coche, sino porque mientras los demás soñaban plácidamente, tuve que ir pendiente de Said, el nuevo conductor, porque llevaba conduciendo desde las seis de la mañana y temía que pudiera quedarse dormido al volante. Para ello traté de darle conversación, pero, al igual que Yasser, no hablaba demasiado bien el inglés. No hubo demasiada suerte porque raras veces conseguí que tartamudeara a...

In the early morning hours of October 23, 1983, two trucks full of explosives drove into buildings housing US and French troops. The US marines were members of the 1st Battalion 8th Marines based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, participating in a peace keeping mission there. Their duty term was from May until November.At the time I was in my first year of community college studying to be a nurse while working at a local fast food restaurant. You always knew when it was payday because t...

Please note that links to external sites were correct when this blog was written.  However, they may no longer be valid.  This trip around the middle east with Kim's parents Pat & Fiona was originally centred around visiting the rose-red Nabatean (Arab) city of Petra in Jordan.  However, we decided to re-live our best-loved experiences in Lebanon and Syria ... and also catch-up on things we missed last time.  On the other hand, we're also being gutsy by facing up to ...

Today we paid a flying visit to Lebanon. We visited Baalbek first, which contains an ancient temple to the Phoenician god Baal (Baalbek means City of Baal). Baalbek was renamed Heliopolis (City of the Sun, it has 300 sunny days a year on average) by the ancient Greeks), and Baal was turned into Jupiter (and the temple converted) by the Romans. Baalbek also has later built temples to Venus, the Goddess of Love, and Bacchus, the God of Wine (who alone of the Roman gods has no gender). Th...

One of the most beautiful countries I have seen, Ajlan fi Lubna!

Traveled to Lebanon with my friend Malek. The only way to travel. It was the perfect mix of family time and party time. One of the best experiences I've ever had!

it is the most beautiful coutry in the world i have ever seen

The guy from Apamea, SyriaAt least twice a year, the whole family, plus two Rhodesian ridgebacks, would pile into our first-generation Range Rover �" with Union Jacks plastered all over it, so that we weren’t mistaken for the dreaded secret police, who drove the same vehicle �" and head off into the desert.I have warm memories of driving up the highest sand dune in the middle of the desert to try to get better reception on the BBC World Service so that we could listen to the Grand Natio...

Cairo, Riyadh, Beirut

it was amazing, a beautiful and charming city dont miss visiting, I had great sea food try the au prince hotel cafe on l'horloge square and try the ice cream with caramelized sugar

Temple at Baalbek Today, we took a shared minibus to Baalbek. This is the site of an ancient Phoenician (later Roman) temple. Without doubt one of the most impressive Roman ruins, with pillars rising some 22m ... makes the Acropolis in Athens look modest. The journey itself was interesting with Lebanese military checkpoints along the way, but in some sections alternated with Syrian ones. Our reading suggests that Syria still occupies parts of Lebanon, but it is hard to get a better understa...