And then came Lebanon and Beirut.
There was little culture here as it's known as 'The West of the Arabic World' although completely unknown to me (I am such a heathen) I, once again, did my Christopher Columbus impression and discovered it was inhabited by the French for so long everyone speaks French and Arabic and not much English.. oh the trials and tribulations of being multilingual :-) But I managed... tried 'speaking Italian' (as I do soooo well) but even that didn't work :-)
After the plains of Syria Lebanon was surprisingly mountainous and the caps were still covered in snow.. although at 28 degrees in Spring I don't think it will last much longer but it was beautiful. In fact Beirut was beautiful; far more scenic than Syria with less history.. or so it appeared. The first thing we noticed was the military presence.. duh.. of course!! There were military personnel carrying machine guns and armed tanks at almost every corner... an unusual sight for a true westerner like this one. The coastline of Beirut, while fascinating to Simona who lives 400 miles from the coast I can honestly say was lovely but... coming from New Zealand and especially Auckland was nothing out of the ordinary! No offence to the Lebanonese BUT.. well its just how it is.
The Rauche rocks were amazing and we went on a jetboat and through a hole in the rock.. visions of Cape Brett in the Bay of Islands. Once again there was a huge miltary presence and barbed wire protecting the area. We ventured out for a day at Byblos, a little fishing village about an hour north of Beirut and sampled fresh seafood which was amazing.. the giant shrimps even tasted freshly caught.. and of course the wine was great too. Once again a UNESCO world heritage site as the Crusader Castle there was inhabited 2,000 years BC.. oh so much history once again. Of course (of course!!) most of our time in Beirut was spent socialising and making the most of our freedom.. and eating bacon (harem in Saudi.. even trying to bring it in would result in deportation and I didn't think any of you would want me suddenly camping in your front room!) so while the pictures are somewhat entertaining to say the least... they arent exactly of historical sights.. as you will see.
