Grand Hills Hotel And Spa Beirut

... the sea in a vista more reminiscent of<br>south-eastern France rather than the middle east. <br><br><br><br><br>This is<br>the paradox that seems to exist in Beirut these days. In some ways<br>it really is the riviera city of the tourist adverts &#8211; a<br>millionaire's playground with fabulous flats, fast boats and faster<br>cars, the best restaurants in the region, flat seas and perfect<br>weather. There are whole parts of the city which could ...

... are brightly colored yellow and include the latest political slogans and platforms. They talk of anti-corruption, of change, and of national unity. One stuck out from the others. The words &#8220;Your Lebanon, their Lebanon, my Lebanon&#8221; were all crossed out and replaced with &#8220;Our Lebanon. One nation for all Lebanese.&#8221; We must consider these words when trying to understand how Hezbollah rallies so much popularity in the region. After all, such patriotic sentiment ...

... 7 chalets but there was only 1 with all sorts of people trying to get you to have lessons and so on.  Tarek and Hanny were the focus of this so we got to wait in the sun with all the snow around us.  I was in heaven!!!!!!  We stayed for about an hour so they could snowboard and sled and they were happy. Our driver brought us to a place for lunch that I don't think I need to remember at all.  All though, the hummus and ...

... We were 4 open minded guys so we listened. He was actually a very interesting guy and it was obvious that he was highly intelligent. We ended up having 2 separate conversations with the guy that lasted about 30-45 minutes each. All of us were engaged in the conversation but none of us really agreed with some of the major points he the man was trying to "teach" us. He did give us a tip though. He said Armageddon was fast approaching. He predicted that we ...

... of the airport and swept around a bend towards the exit. Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, the minivan jarred to a holt and turned off. The driver motioned all of us to get out. We'd come across a group of kids (kids being used to describe anyone roughly between the ages of 15 and younger than me) and a few scattered adults among them. The kids started to grab all of the bags out of the minivan and push them into the back of a small sedan that was parked nearby. There was ...

... not for us. But more on that in a minute. I'll start by saying that it was a beautiful resort with a great setting, nice pools, and comfortable rooms. However.... Now I won't go into a ton of detail since I think we all took care of that on our hotel comment cards but, suffice to say, the Edde didn't seem quite sure they actually wanted paying guests at this time. Anyway, a quick summary would read as follows: Lied to by beach security because "he didn't know we were staying at the ...

... after four or so months in Damascus, and even Nancy and Lindsay appreciated it. There we stayed for a couple of hours or so drinking, dancing and yelling "Ohhh, sweeeet!!" every so often when a rock n' roll gem came blasting through the speakers. With the time heading towards the small hours we headed to Gemmayzeh, the main nightlife area of Beirut. Upon our primetime arrival there we were left shocked at how empty it was. Earlier that day we had wandered with a sort of ...

This morning, we got up and had mankounesh (which I'm still not spelling right, but it sure does taste good) in the car on the way to Minyara. Hadi, a student at NEST and the pastor of a church there, drove us. It was nice to get out of Beirut and see something different for once! We first went to the Cedars - a gootball field sized cluster of giant cedar trees up in the mountains. Pretty and very old (and that's an understatement). In the summer, you can walk around ...

... and overgrown and big lizards give up munching dandelions to scuttle out of your way. Only six of the 54 columns remain standing but they are the largest of the ancient world (22.9m by 2.2m) - Justinian shipped many of the missing ones to Constantinople to support his great cathedral, Sainta Sophia. Standing on the raised temple mound there are lovely, if hazy, views of snow capped mountains. We shared the site with a few locals - black-veiled women and hair-gelled ...

... that we were going on a picnic, and to change my clothes. So, I tried to put together my best picnic outfit- jeans, sneakers, and a simple country style top. We ended up at a very fancy resturaunt, in the mountains! By picnic, she meant to convey resturaunt. We went to a place in the mountains abouve Beirut, called Aley. It is beautiful up there and a relief to get away into a cooler climate ...