Lovely Lebanon!

Back in November we had a long weekend away from school. A group of us decided to take a trip to Lebanon and it was yet again, another great tip!

We stayed in a lovely hotel in the heart of Beirut. Which just so happen to have this little cafe below us where we spent out nights eating, drinking delicious Lebanese red wine, and enjoying some shisha.

Here’s a little taste of what we were able to fit in:

We drove to the Jeita Grotto which was just beautiful! We took a teleferique to the upper grotto and then walked to the lower grotto. It’s a system of karstic limestone caves spanning an overall length of nearly 9 kilometres. We walked around in the upper and took a boat ride on the lower.
We then drove to Harissa, which is a little outside of Beirut. We took a cable car to the top of Harissa Hill where we were able to see the large statue of the Virgin Mary, which was built in the 19th century and is also known as Our Lady of Lebanon.
Byblos was out next stop. It’s a Mediterranean city in Lebanon and is known to be one of the oldest Phoenician cities. Here we ate a delicious Lebanese meal and drank a few too many bottles of Lebanese red wine (seems to be a pattern here). We walked around the city and took in the sites and sunset on the Mediterranean.
Near our hotel we walked around downtown Beirut and came across a street food festival.
We walked to Armenia Street which has little cafes, street art, and pubs. Then saw Pigeon Rock (which I think only Americans call it that…as no-one could point us in the right direction). But, it’s a beautiful natural landmark!
Before we headed to the airport we took a ride to a city called Saida. We drove past banana farms that stretched all the way to Palestine. While in Saida we walked around the old souks and then headed back to Beirut to catch out flight home.