Weekend in Beirut

I went to Beirut this weekend for a quick trip. The visit was prompted by one of my colleagues who is heading back to Canada this week; he had never been and expressed an interest in going. I was hoping for Damascus instead, but another fellow pressed for Beirut, and so it was. The three of us boarded a plane Thursday evening and one hour later we were there.

From the first moment, the trip was an unexpected joy - a cheap flight on Royal Jordanian , no visa requirements and no hassle at the Beirut airport (a happy surprise). One companion is an architect, the other a historic preservation expert and we made excellent travelling companions: same interests, same pace, same tastes. Our shared top priorities were: good coffee, good food, good wine, at least one good bar and lots of walking in the city.

We found it all, and then some. Beirut was a beautiful, beguiling place. We kept trying to pin down what we were seeing. Some comparisons included: Paris (amazing cafes, intellectuals and universal French chic); Marseilles (edgy port city, salty sea air and amazing seafood), Belgrade and Istanbul (grand city of the Ottoman empire filled with boulevards, ancient minarets and byzantine churches); Berlin (the scars of the war, the green line between north and south beirut, the underground culture), Montreal (the beautiful young people, the club and bar scene), all in the context of an arabic speaking, middle eastern city filled with funky 60s modern buildings.

We stayed in the neighbourhood of Gemmayzeh/Jmeyzeh (depending on how you choose to spell it...) on the edge of the former battleground that divided the city during the civil war. The evidence of bullet holes and shell damage still persist years after the end of the war. (Pictures below of bombed out buildings and cinder block facade repairs). Despite the scars, the neighbourhood is booming with restaurants, bars, art studios, local shops, and the like.

We walked everywhere: across the green line, through the revitalized and completely repaired downtown - with the most beautiful flower plantings I have ever seen anywhere - and into the Hamra district in South Beirut and along the sea wall "corniche" boardwalk looking out over the mediterranean. The food was absurdly good everywhere we went - from lunch counter experience (fresh flatbread and local cheese and olives) to slow food restaurant in the evening. We collectively had one of the best - if not THE best - meals of our lives in a wonderful restaurant called Bread. I intend to go back.

After walking the city for a day and a half, we hailed a cab on Saturday afternoon and headed north up the coast to see the port of Byblos - founded by the Phoenecians 7000 years ago. Layers of historical remnants remain - the original Phoenecian port and sea wall that created an amazingly sheltered harbour on the rough mediterannean coastline; greek temples; roman baths and colonades; early Christian churches; and later medieval ramparts topped off by a crenellated castle built by the crusaders in the 12th century.

We returned to Amman on a late flight, talking all the time about how we might be able to swing a 6-month assignment back in Lebanon. We landed at the airport at the same time as a flight from the Gulf - Dubai or Jeddah or Abu Dhabi - and realized that we hadn't seen a man in a keffiyeh (headscarf) and white dishdashah (long tunic) the whole time we were there. It came as a surprise and a reminder: we were gone from the mediterranean and back in the land of the bedouin.