Lebanon - Easter Sunday Dinner

Our Lebanese adventure culminated with Easter Dinner with Eli & Libby's family and friends. Libby cooked for approximately 40 of us and it was a delicious dinner. She had a huge ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, salads, a pineapple dish that was devoured quickly because it was so good, roasted vegetables and some fantastic desserts! In addition, Eli is a wine connoisseur so there was lots of great Lebanese wine as well. It actually felt a lot like an Easter at Mom Stoll's with lots of good food, good conversation, and fun. After lunch, one of the women sat down at the piano and the singing began. Actually, Libby told me later that it was a fairly calm event as often the singing progresses into dancing. We felt pretty honored to be part of the group and had a fabulous time.

The only real upset of the day was that Libby's oven exploded. Yep, not even exaggerating, it exploded! We had actually just walked in the door with Eli, who picked us up at our hotel, and saw glass all over the kitchen floor. Someone then explained that the outside glass of the over door simply exploded all over the kitchen! Luckily, no one was hurt and nothing was in the oven at the time. In fact, that what we all found so funny - the oven was off and had been off for a while as they were finished cooking. Weird. On the bright side, Libby is thrilled that she'll now get to shop for a new oven! :)

Easter celebrations seem pretty similar to what we'd have back home. Church service in the morning (we didn't attend, but others had) and family gatherings in the afternoon. Lebanon also celebrates Easter Monday, which is another day off work. The joke is that between the Muslim holidays, the Orthodox Christian holidays and the Catholic Christian holidays, there aren't many days left to actually work! (sounds good to me ;)

It was great to be able to celebrate the holiday with such generous friends! Thank you Eli & Libby for the fantastic weekend!! 

Lebanon - Byblos

As we headed down the mountain to lunch, the temperature rose and the sun came out and we finished the afternoon with bright sunny skies and a temp of around 80. We had a fabulous lunch of steak, potatoes, salad and red wine (hey, we were on vacation after all!) at a cute little cafe. Here's a photo of us toasting our fabulous weekend.

Our last stop for the day was Byblos, which is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. It is believed to have been founded in about 5000 B.C. The main attraction here is the church and castle built by the Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries. In addition, you can see layers and layers of city ruins showing just how many civilizations have called Byblos home over the centuries. You could spend a whole day poking around the ruins of the castle and grounds - lots to see and such a beautiful location overlooking the Mediterranean. Here are a few photos to give you a sense of the place.

Surrounding the castle and church are a number of shops and restaurants. One in particular sells fish fossils found on the site. I couldn't get any pictures as they were for sale and in a shop, but some were really amazing. Didn't get a lot of time to look around though as it was starting to get late, the boys weren't much into shopping, and we had dinner plans. So, it was off to our hotel to rest up a bit before dinner. A long day, but so much fun and such diversity!

Lebanon - The Cedars

After our visit to the Gibran museum, we continued North to an area in the mountains known as the Cedars and even a bit further in to the ski resort area. These cedars are some of the oldest trees in the world, many of them hundreds of years old. The grove of trees is surrounded by a number of little tourist shacks selling all kinds of wood carvings, local crafts and honey (yum!). We stopped to pick up some honey for Libby and the shop owner made Brian and I a present - a cedar keychain with our names and the date - cute. It was probably low 40s on this day and the shop keepers were all wearing snowpants and heavy coats. Brian and I were just happy not to be sweating! :) Here are a couple of nice shots of the center of 'town' and the huge cedar tree in its middle.

A bit further north is the ski resort area. The slopes had shut down a few weeks earlier, but there was still actually a little bit of snow on the ground - just enough for two homesick Wisconsinites. Here are a few pics of the ski slopes. Note Eli in a coat and Brian and I with just a long sleeve shirt and light sweater.

After visiting the snow, we headed back down the mountains for some lunch. Here are a few pics on our way back.

It was a gorgeous drive and was interesting to see the variety of the countryside. Next it was time for some lunch and a tour of Byblos.

Lebanon - Khalil Gibran

Saturday morning of our visit dawned a bit overcast and rainy, but still quite pleasant. Our plan was to travel north to the mountains and ski resort area and on the way visit the museum and home of Khalil Gibran. Gibran is best known as the author of The Prophet, a collection of spiritual poems. I had never heard of Gibran or The Prophet, but I'll bet many of you have as it's been translated into more than 20 languages and the American versions have sold more than 9 million copies. And I've been told, I'll recognize some of the passages as they are very popular readings at weddings.

We travelled North and up the mountain and watched the temp gauge in the car go from 68 when we started to 41 near the top! Gibran's museum was a bit more than halfway to the ski area and a gorgeous drive. Here are just a few of the photos I took on the way up.

The museum is located in Gibran's home and has it's own set of amazing views. The museum is filled with information about his life and then many of his paintings, so it was a bit like an art gallery. I couldn't take any photos in the museum itself, but here are a few of the grounds and the views. I think the overcast skies and dreary weather actually added to the feel of the place - very mysterious and spiritual.

Easter in Lebanon

CORRECTION (April 27): The war damage depicted in some of these photos is actually from the Civil War that ran from 1975-1982. Any damage caused by the Hezbollah conflict has been repaired since then by Hezbollah. Sorry for any confusion and thank you Libby for helping me get my facts straight!

Living in a Muslim country, I was surprised to find chocolate eggs and Easter baskets in Abu Dhabi (no peeps, thank goodness), but even so, Easter Sunday isn't considered a public holiday and since the work week is Sunday - Thursday, Easter was just another work day here. Luckily, we were invited to spend the weekend in Lebanon with our friends Eli (Lebanese) and his wife, Libby (American) so Brian took a couple of days of vacation and we headed to Beirut. Lebanon has an almost equal split between Christian and Muslim so at least half of the population was celebrating Easter! :)

It was interesting to travel to Beirut after all we've heard from the American media. I took a peek at Trip Advisor, which is a travel review website I use frequently to see reviews on restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions and saw a travel advisory warning from the US State Department. We went anyway as we've started to observe that the US State Department is incredibly cautious and we would be with local residents who've lived in Lebanon for over 15 years and managed through their war in 2006. As expected, we didn't have any problems whatsoever, but did see a number of military personnel on the streets and at a few road check points as we travelled. I'm not sure I'd go camping in the remote mountains of Lebanon, but I felt perfectly safe in Beirut and at the major tourist attractions.

Lebanon is a relatively small country in Western Asia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. And it is beautiful! Lots of mountains and right on the Mediterranean. This shot is the view from our hotel and it's not like we were staying in some posh 5 start resort either - it's just the kind of view you can easily find in Lebanon.

The people of Lebanon are very business savvy, generous, friendly, loud, full of life and fun, and some of the best dressed folks in this part of the world. Fashion, hair and makeup are a high priority (so as you can imagine, I felt frumpy and under dressed the entire trip! ;) Guests are treated like royalty here and as our friend Eli put it, "when we have a guest, we don't want them to touch their wallet while they are here." Let's just say we felt very welcomed and very pampered our whole trip.


We arrived on Friday afternoon and Eli and Libby met us at the airport and took us on a tour of Beirut. As I mentioned, the population is almost equally divided between Christian and Muslim so you see the clear influences of both. Mosques and churches sit side by side in some areas of Beirut and in fact, at the evening call to prayer, we heard the Muezzin from the Mosque and the bells from the Catholic church next door at the same time.  LOL! Trying to outdo each other for sure. Beirut, and in fact, all of Lebanon is also very open, so we saw liquor stores and billboards, lingerie shops and all matters of dress (at least in the Christian areas of the city). It was quite a change from what we've gotten used to in Abu Dhabi. This is one of my favorite billboards - who knew Playboy also sold an energy drink? :) And yes, that's snow! This was taken in the ski resort area near the Cedars, which I'll post more about over the next few days.

The other thing to notice about Beirut is war damage. Growing up in Wisconsin we couldn't begin to appreciate the destruction of the 2006 Lebanon War between Hezbollah and Israel. Much of Beirut was destroyed and has been repaired and built back up since then. Here are a few pics of some of the buildings that haven't yet been repaired.

Much of Beirut has been repaired, however, so many areas are really nice with high end shopping, lots of cafes and restaurants, hotels, ... Lebanon's biggest industry is tourism, and it's easy to see why when you consider the moderate climate, the mountains and the Mediterranean. As one gentleman told me, "you can be skiing in the morning and an hour later be swimming in the sea." Here are some photos from one of the nicest areas in Beirut and a popular tourist area. (Notice the military officer in the 3rd pic.)

Another beautiful part of the city are the huge old Victorian houses you see tucked between old war torn buildings or glittering new high rises. Here's one of the beauties we stopped to admire. It reminds me a bit of the old Victorians in the US, but these tend to be narrower and higher. Really lovely houses.

After our tour, we checked into our hotel and then had a late dinner of cheeses, cold cuts and wonderful Lebanese wine at Eli & Libby's. We sat out on their balcony with that gorgeous view of the city and the Mediterranean and actually got a little cool. Lebanon has a moderate climate with four seasons so it's spring now and starting to get warmer during the day, but still cool at night (I had to borrow a coat!) I didn't even bring a coat to UAE because I knew I'd never need it - guess I should have planned ahead for when we travel. :) Before heading off to bed, we made plans to meet up the next morning at 9am to start our tour of Northern Lebanon.