Adventures in Asia: Anjar, Lebanon

From Baalbek we drove an hour or so south to Anjar to visit the ruins of a royal Umayyad city. 

On the way to Anjar we went through the town of Riyaq, which for a time was a major transportation hub along the Damascus-Beirut railway and with an airport originally built by the Germans during World War I. Nowadays it hosts a base for the Lebanese air force.

We also passed more refugee camps, farms, and sheep herds. In the photos below, besides the sheep, you can see glimpses of the UNHCR tarps that are ubiquitous in the refugee camps. 

Our guide, the Armenian archaeologist, is actively working at the Anjar site, so it was pretty cool to have him tour us around.

The Umayyad dynasty ruled much of the Arab world in the 7th-8th century CE from Damascus, and Anjar was built as a summer getaway by Caliph Walid Ibn Abd Al-Malak. It is only a few hours from Damascus (about an hour by car nowadays) and at a higher, cooler elevation. It was also at the crossroads of the Damascus-Beirut and Homs-Tiberias trading routes. Archaelogists have done a lot of work over the last few decades excavating and reconstructing portions of the palace, city streets, shops, baths, and so on. 

Our guide left us in Anjar, which is where he lives, and the driver took us to the largest population centre in the Bekaa valley (and third largest city in all of Lebanon), the Christian city of Zahle. Here, we ate a delicious lunch at Casino Arabi. It would be hard to list everything we ate, but it was standard Lebanese fare--hummus, baba ganouj. stuffed vine leaves, fattoush, various kebabs, and so on. 

Our final tour stop was Lebanon's largest winery, just outside of Zahle.

We had a quick tour of the tunnels and cave here, where historically the Jesuit monks who started the winery aged and stored wine. 

After the tour we were served some wine samples in the gorgeous bar upstairs. Overall the winery tour was a bit disappointing compared to some I have done in Canada, mostly because it felt rushed. But, it was still cool to get to see a Lebanese winery and sample Lebanese wines. Also, Chateau Ksara has one of the most . . . engaging? . . . websites I have ever visited: https://chateauksara.com/Intro/.

Back in Beirut we had a drink and watched sunset by the Pigeon Rocks.

After dinner, I was eager to figure out how to use Uber paying with cash (credit card would charge the official exchange rate for Lebanese pounds instead of the black market rate, and would therefore make any trip exorbitantly expensive). We decided to head to a bar on Beirut's famous Armenia Street, about 15 minutes across town. All went well with the Uber there and back (more or less, anyway; on the trip there the driver asked for more money than the app said, and seemed to suggest that Uber was behind on the exchange rate [this is quite possible given how quickly the rate changes, but I was not going to comply with paying more than the quoted price]), which was great because it will make our plans tomorrow much easier if we can reliably use Uber.

Adventures in Asia: Baalbek, Lebanon

From Lefkara on Monday we drove back to Larnaca airport to drop the rental car and catch a short Cyprus Airways flight to Beirut. We had a great late afternoon view of the city as we came in to land.

This is a view of the corniche and Beirut's famous "Pigeon Rocks."

We took a taxi through the awful Beirut traffic to our hotel, not far from the corniche. My first excursion out was to change money; in some ways the terrible inflation situation in Lebanon seems to dominate everything, or at least an awful lot of daily life. Officially the rate is pegged at $1 USD equals 15,000 Lebanese pounds, but in actuality I received 80,000 Lebanese pounds for each USD. The black market rate fluctuates constantly, but is always significantly better than the official rate. Another factor is that the largest bill is 100,000 pounds, so four million pounds (just a single $50 USD bill) ends up turning into a wad of 40 bills!

With our pockets bulging with cash, we had drinks and dinner before turning in. This morning we had arranged to join a tour out of Beirut and over the mountains to the Bekaa Valley which lies between the mountains and the border with Syria. The tour is fairly expensive ($95 USD each), but was an easy way to see this part of the country (and we could pay with credit card, a rarity in Lebanon right now, and so that lets us conserve cash). We were picked up at 8:00, picked up another tourist on the way out of the city and headed up into the suburban hills over Beirut and through the mountain pass. I was surprised how much snow there was in the mountains. Our driver pointed out that at some times of year you can ski and swim at the beach in the same day in Lebanon!

We picked up our guide (an Armenian Christian--ethnicity/religion are super important in Lebanon), under an overpass in the town of Chtoura, which means "crossroads."

From Chtoura we drove north about another hour to the city of Baalbek. We passed through several towns and villages and checkpoints along the way, as well as small Syrian refugee camps. 

Our first stop in Baalbek was an old Roman quarry. Look at the size of that stone that was mostly-excavated but abandoned in situ!

From there it was a couple more minutes down the road to the Baalbek ruins. 

Our guide is an archaeologist in the region, so knows the site well. It is an incredible place, with ruins from the ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and European Christian crusaders, and so on, more or less all on top of each other. 

Originally the site was developed as a Phoenician temple for Baal (hence the name Baalbek), but it is the Roman Jupiter Temple that was built over top that is really remarkable and incredibly massive--it was the largest temple the Romans ever built! Later, the temple was largely destroyed, mostly intentionally, by Muslims and Christians, but locals also converted parts of it into a fortress. These are all photos from around the Jupiter temple complex.

These six columns have been standing since they were first erected--the only standing columns at the site that have not been reconstructed. The columns at this site were the largest in the classical world in terms of height and diameter. 

By the way, the quarry we had stopped at at first was where the large foundation stones came from. The temple complex is raised seven metres, and some of the foundation stones are among the heaviest ever used in history.

Next to the Jupiter temple is the temple to Bacchus, which is mostly still intact because Christians converted it into a church rather than trying to destroy it. 

As far as ancient Roman temple ruins go, the site at Baalbek is by far the most incredible I have ever visited. Its sheer size is mindboggling, but it is also very well preserved and visitor-friendly. 

Adventures in Europe: Trodos Mountains, Cyprus

Our day trip to Lefkosia yesterday was rather spontaneous, but I had planned our drive for today weeks ago.

We started out heading north from Lefkara, doing some incredible switch-backing through the valleys and hills before the road more or less straightened and flattened out. We stopped to stretch our legs at a village called Episkopeio where there is a Russian church . . . 

. . . and a Romanian Orthodox church (entirely made of wood!).

Somehow this place is built like a tourist attraction and both churches are featured on the cyprusisland.net website. You can get a sense for the plaza in these videos: https://youtu.be/NzL82PUfme4 and https://youtu.be/stvk-Rk1x3Y.

Soon after we entered the Troodos park area, there was a pullout for a view of this lake. The scene gives you a sense of the landscape we were driving through.

Besides the mountains and the beautiful nature, the Troodos Mountains are famous for old, Byzantine-era monasteries and churches, ten of which are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. We visited the Monastery of the Virgin Mary of Arakas. There is a wooden superstructure now surrounding the old stone building, which makes for a unique look. 

You can see how the wood wall is lattice and covers the dome as well. 

This side does not have the wooden wall protecting it. 

Anyway, the churches are not noteworthy for their exteriors, but the painted interiors. Unfortunately you cannot photograph these, but there are lots of photos online, including at this website: http://www.lagoudera.org/en/what-to-know-ten/moni-panagias-arakac-ten.html.

After visiting the monastery, we stopped for a coffee at a roadside cafe in a little place called Chandria, and then really headed up a mountain for a hike. 

The trail takes you along the edge of the mountain, with some great views of the valley below and mountains all around. 

We were surprised to encounter a lot of snow!

After 3.5 km of hiking you reach the foot of a fairly steep climb up to the Madari fire station.

Up here you have a 360 degree view.

You can take the fire station access road back down to the trailhead, which is a bit of a shortcut. In total the hike probably works out to five kilometres or so.

It was almost 13:30 now and we had worked up quite an appetite, so from the trailhead we drove 15 minutes to Agros, one of the larger villages in the area. We parked by the church and set out to find some lunch.

There were many restaurants and cafes here, but we had a frustrating ten minutes of walking along finding that places were either closed or packed to the gills on this Sunday afternoon. Agros is a nice place, but we did not feel very welcome and left hungry! Luckily, as we worked our way back to Lefkara, we came by a bakery/convenience store and were able to buy some snacks, including some wonderful baklava, to dull our hunger. We drove back a different way than we had come (hence the loop in the map above), and it was a gorgeous drive, too. Although I had been nervous about driving on the left, I am beginning to actually enjoy it.