Baalbek: Roman temples on a titanic scale

Day 47 10 October 2010 Sunday
Today we visited the ancient Roman city of Baalbek (Heliopolis - Sun City)

The center of the site is composed of two massive temples as well as smaller courtyards and fountains.

The larger of the two temples, dedicated Jupiter (A.D. 60) is 90 meters long with some of the largest columns (only 6 still standing) in the world.

The second, smaller temple, dedicated to Venus (A.D. 150) which is still very large, is much better preserved.

Menagerie

Day 46 9 October 2010 Saturday

Beirut is a menagerie of modern, ruined, historic, religious, secular, affluent, and working class. A visitor would see just as many large churches as mosques, just as many Mercedes 500SL’s as mid 80’s Toyota Tercels, and just as many western fast food venues as local falafel stands. Walking the neighborhoods is a mixture of modern and restored high rises, as well as, historical mansions and bomb pot marked carcasses of buildings.

We visited the National Museum, where between 1976 and 1990, during the civil war most treasures were locked away in the basement. Those that weren’t like the 1800 year old sarcophagi were encased in concrete bunkers to protect them from the shelling and looting.

Byblos (Jbail) or also the biblical Gebal

Day 45 8 October 2010 Friday

The current town of Byblos has been continuously inhabited for the past 7000 years, and was at one time the busiest trading port in the eastern Mediterranean. Originally called Gebal, the Greeks called it Byblos named after the papyrus (for making books) that was shipped through here from Egypt.

We ended the day by traveling on to Beirut through the middle of a rain storm.

Mountains just minutes from the ocean

Day 44 8 October 2010 Thursday


A simple day, we took a short trip up the mountains to Bcharre to view the Qadisha Valley. This is just down the road from The Cedars ski area, one of about 5 ski areas in Lebanon.

Bonjour, Welcome to Lebanon

Day 43 7 October 2010 Wednesday

Today was spent in travel to Tripoli (Trablous). The visa was free but the taxi drivers were a pain. So far English has been the language to converse with tourists in, but here in Lebanon (just when we were getting comfortable with our Arabic, ha ha) we have been switched to French.

And the number one place to hang out while crusading is……..Crac des Chevaliers

Day 42 6 October 2010 Tuesday

No seriously if I had to live in a castle this would be the one.

 

Roman pillars in the Syrian desert. OR Where the camels rested.

Day 39 3 October 2010 Saturday
Day 40 4 October 2010 Sunday
Day 41 5 October 2010 Monday

On Saturday we travel only a couple hundred kilometers south and east to Palmyra (Roman)/Tadmor (Arabic) and it rained in the desert. We spent the next couple days wandering amongst the sand blasted pillars, temples and towers.