Lebanon
My favourite single roman ruin in the
world is Baalbek, built with the intention to awe and impress.
Despite its small footprint in the fertile Bekaa valley of
eastern Lebanon, compared with Palmyra or Pompeii, the structures that
remain are well preserved and majestic.
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The last artisanal soapmaker in Lebanon,
located in a dusty second floor atelier in a caravanserai in side the
Tripoli souq, cuts pieces of musk soap to fit into my
minitravelsoapdish. The family is happy to talk about the
publicity they've received in magazine and TV coverage in Europe, and
less enthusiastic to talk about the organized crime that competitors
have used to usurp the artisanal soap business in Lebanon.
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The dashing Taynal mosque in
Tripoli. Both the mosque and the pleasant and undervisited city,
with a souq that rivals Aleppo, are well kept secrets in the Levant.
In mid-March, the beachhouses may be
starting to stir from their winter hibernation, but up in the gorge-ous
Qadisha valley, the ski resorts were still in their last days of
operation, the snow cohabitating with the trademark Lebanese cedars and
spring blossoms. Bcharre is the French-built resort town in
the valley where modern day French and expats working on the coast
still flock to on weekends for the fresh mountain air and beautiful
vistas.
Between the bombed out buildings on the
Green line battlefront during the civil war, and massive urban renewal
projects, a surprisingly tranquil stupour pervades daily life in
Beirut. Here on the Corniche, locals try their luck with their
fishing rods on a sunny weekend afternoon.
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