I’m super pumped to announce that this weekend, Jayne from 40 Before 30 and I will be flying out to Beirut to spend a few days in Lebanon!
This is another jaunt with bmi, who are awesome friends of 48 Hour Adventure. We’ll be getting into Beirut on Thursday afternoon and fly out Sunday morning, giving us a good solid 48 hours in-country to experience everything the mediterranean coastal city and surrounding countryside has to offer.
What’s on the cards?
When I first came to Europe, I had no idea I’d ever visit Lebanon. Hell, I had no idea I’d ever visit places like Moscow, so this is a hugely exciting prospect. Lebanon is a pretty small country, but it’s one of the few that can offer the chance to go skiing during the day and then be able to have dinner by the beach at night.
Due to it’s limited area and huge mountain range that runs like a spine through the centre of the country, it’s very geographically diverse.
Naturally, we’ll be spending a lot of our time in Beirut itself sampling the nightlife, food, culture and general way of life. We’ll be staying at the Four Seasons, which has amazing views over the waterfront and is one of the tallest buildings in the city. In addition to providing an amazing vista, the hotel also sports some great bars and restaurants and provides second to none service that we can’t wait to get amongst.
We’ll also be visting a few other sights around Lebanon, including Byblos on the coast, a city dating back to Egyptian and Phonecian times (circa 1200 BC) which is apparently the oldest continually inhabited city in the world (and of course, a UNESCO World Heritage Site). If that isn’t history on an epic scale, then I don’t know what is.
Baalbek is another city we’ll be hitting up, and is touted as one of the most intact examples of Roman ruins in the world and the best example of the empire’s legacy Lebanon has to offer.
I’m also pretty excited to check out what is probably the most well known attraction in Lebanon, the Jeita Grotto. It’s a 9 kilometre long system of caves underneath Mount Lebanon that was inhabited during prehistoric times but only discovered back in 1836. You can only check it out by boat, because the whole thing is flooded with freshwater that keeps the local citizens hydrated.
As well as being one of the most important visit attractions in Lebanon (with 280,000 visitors per year), it’s also the longest cave complex in the Middle East.
Stay Updated
We’ll be posting photos and first hand experiences along the way (pending wifi availability), so make sure you stay updated during the trip using the hashtag #bmibeirut and following my twitter and Facebook pages.
Hot on the heels of our 48 hours in Amman guide by Fraser Balaam, I can’t wait to come back and write about another hectic, beautiful Middle Eastern city and tell you all about the history, the food and atmosphere Lebanon has to offer.
