Grand Hotel Kadri Zahle

We started out the day traveling to Zahle, a popular place in the Bekaa valley to go out to eat. For lunch we had shish kabobs, hummus, babaganoush, pomme frites and home-made moutain pita bread. We then headed to Caves de Ksara, a winery nearby. The winery is on the site of a midieval fortress (ksar, in Arabic). In the 18th century ...

... out to the wall of the old city with Clive, Vivian and Christian (friends of Clive). We wandered the deserted streets of the Cul DE sacs lining the city walls. In and out we wandered. After an hour of walking we heard the tinkling of teaspoons in glasses. Clive and Christian had taken a wrong turn into a families home. Instead of saying "Get out what are you doing in hear? "They invited us in for a drink. Five unexpected visitors walking into your home how would you ...

... looking at all the swords. The swords were extravagant, they had designs on the blade, although Noor kept saying don't touch. We took the swords out of their sheath and looked at them. When we finally got out of that shop, we went to buy bracelets. Mine was silver with green eyes, and Hope's was silver with red eyes. That took about five minutes.<br><br>After that we went to another souk that sold sweets. We bought all kinds of different sweets ...

(Jim)<br>Once we'd checked out the ruins we grabbed another service taxi down to Zahle, the capital of Lebanon's wine growing district. Zahle is also known as the food capital so we were expecting a very pleasant stay! Once again L'Hote Libanais provided our accommodation, this time in a beautiful Ottoman era house in the centre of town, where we met a great couple from Dublin, Sean and Emma.<br><br>Unfortunately the wines we tasted ...

... rights abuses have occurred at <br>Tadmor military prison since the early 1980s, from deaths under torture to <br>summary executions on a massive scale.&#8221;<br><br><br>Reports of the violent demise of prisoners includes being cut up into small <br>pieces with an axe, being roped and then dragged to death or just being <br>savagely beaten with metal pipes. <br>How awesome is that.<br>

... a larger group of women. Most people seemed quite content to visit and even just hang out at the mosque. We were made to feel very welcome and were effectively given free reign of the mosque. This is a very stylish mosque, the gilded mosaics on the inside walls were ...

... both plentiful and delicious here. Andrew has taken to the local milk ice cream covered in pistachios. His pistachio love is rewarded again when he found nougat candies with pistachios. Hard candies are abundant ranging from fruit to coffee and caramel flavors. The smell of hot sugar is pungent in the stalls that sell the sweet stuff. Last night we decided to give the food stalls a break and to splurge a little bit (since Syria ...

After changing our large note Syrian Pounds to something smaller and ended up with wad of notes....like 50 x 100 notes, headed back into the souk.....and to the Azem Palace, which is built using black basalt and limestone in layers giving a stripy affect, which is quiet common in this city. The Palace is typical Damascene style and each room is set up with typical scenes of life, using mannequinns, textiles, furnishings etc. There was a typical bride room, servants area ...

... to go to. He had no idea where it was. So, I showed it to him on the Lonely Planet map. He was either dumb or was acting that way just to charge me some extra minutes. It was frustrating. After asking around extensively, we arrived at the Sultan Hotel that was an author's choice in the Lonely Planet. The room was nothing more than my room in Palmyra, yet they were asking for $30! Plus, they weren't even willing to negotiate the price. As a result, I quickly left Sultan and ...

... The place we went for tea tonight was amazing. I don't think I would be able to find it again though as it was around all these corners and then the door to the restaurant you had to duck under because it was so short. the place was called Beit Jabri and was situated in a restored courtyard of a beautiful Damascene house. After dinner we went outside and Bashar grabbed my hand and said we were going on a date. Everyone told him off ...