October 21-22, 2009: Aside from general laziness, I took day tours in Lebanon partly because I really wanted to visit one of the two remaining
stands of Lebanese cedars. Even Lonely Planet recommended driving yourself or taking a taxi to reach the Chouf Cedar Reserve, and getting to The Cedars involved a bus to Tripoli, a shared taxi to Bcharre and a private taxi to the reserve.
Driving north out of Beirut we passed a lengthy traffic jam of inbound commuters, and a fully built up coastline at least as far as Byblos. I got a glimpse of the castle at Byblos as we went past, but the real interest lay inland, with views of the coastal mountain range. The scenery only got better as we turned inland, past vertical cliffs, deep gorges and tortured strata lines. But Bcharre was a disappointment: neither the scenery nor the town were particularly attractive. We stopped there to visit the Khalil Gibran museum, which contained a large collection of his art. I have to confess that after a few rooms I began to find the pictures repetitive, and turned my attention to the contents of his bookcases instead.
I had expected the Lebanese cedars to be tall and thin, but instead some of their spreading branches were nearly as wide as the trunks were tall. Sadly, the grove was also much smaller than I had imagined, and the guide told us that climate change threatened even those trees that were left. Cracks in the hard-packed earth demonstrated the on-going lack of rain. Walking under these ancient giants on a cool, grey, misty day I felt that I was attending a funeral.
After another lengthy lunch we drove on through increasing mist to the Maronite monastery of St.Anthony at Qozhara. Originally a site for hermits, here the church was partially built inside a cave, and another cave nearby was a pilgrimage site, containing a bizarre collection of pots and pans, left by those who had had children after visiting. The otherwise missable museum contained the remains of a printing press dating to 1783.
My last full day in Lebanon should have featured a visit to the Roman ruins at Baalbek, followed by a wine tasting (yes, in Lebanon – Muslims are only around 60% of the population). But since the Ksara winery had a special event scheduled my tour had to start with the tasting. Not my favorite morning activity! Still, I found the Chardonnay, not a wine I would normally choose, surprisingly good, although I didn’t care for the rosé and thought the red too dry (and I do like my wines dry). The wines mature in barrels in underground caves, first discovered by the Romans, although the current winery dates back only to the early 18th century, perhaps the Romans also produced wine here.
Ksara is close to Zahle, at the entrance to the Bekaa valley, while Baalbek sits in the middle. We drove north up the valley, notoriously a Hezbollah stronghold, on a good divided highway, with Hezbollah flags decorating the lampposts in the median, but I couldn’t draw our guide out on the organization. On the other hand, she gave us lots of information, in French and English, on Baalbek. Although known now for the remarkably well-preserved Temple of Bacchus, and the massive columns remaining from the largely-destroyed Temple of Jupiter, originally this was a Phoenician site, with a temple to Baal. (Remember all those unflattering references to Baal in the Bible?) While the site is large, most of the buildings have suffered badly over the years, but what remains standing is indeed worth seeing.
Lunch, back in Zahle, seemed to take even longer than on the preceding two days, and eventually our guide announced that our coach had a “small problem”. We never got an explanation of the “small problem”, but I had heard a distinct “bang” as we backed into a parking spot before lunch. We took off for our final stop in a different coach, with assurances that the original one would catch up with us. I certainly hoped so, as I had left several items on it that I didn’t want to lose, and viewed the Umayyad ruins in Aanjar with less than complete attention. Dating from the 700s, very early in the ascendancy of Islam, Romano-Hellenistic decorations had been married to an Islamic layout.
Our coach had arrived by the time we finished at Aanjar, but we were running very late by then, and drove back to Beirut through mist and increasing darkness. By the time I finally reached my hotel I was happy just to walk round the corner for a final meal at Laziz – chicken livers, potatoes and red wine. The next morning I would return to Damascus.