Habtoor Grand Hotel Convention Center And Spa Beirut

... be a<br>funky European town, and it is easy at times to forget where you are.<br> But when you turn a corner a find a completely dark, dead street<br>complete with army checkpoints and deserted buildings reality comes<br>rushing back in. The impact seems all the greater for the<br>juxtaposition. This is a place where just as you start to get<br>comfortable your naïvety is abruptly assaulted. <br><br><br><br><br>The best<br>example is the ...

... resonate deeply in a country still recovering from its horrific and fractious civil war. <br><br><br><br>This brings us to our next myth: Lebanon is a war-torn country. There are certainly parts of Lebanon that still resemble a war zone. While driving to a winery in the Bekaa Valley, a base for Hezbollah influence, we had to take a detour around a bridge destroyed by Israeli warplanes in 2006. That same week a child was maimed by a previously un-detonated Israeli cluster bomb. During ...

... was good but that was it for me.    Back in the van and off to Harissa we went!  What's to see here?  The huge white statue of Our Lady of Lebanon.  To get there, we needed to take a 9 minute cable car ride up over the city and then a funicular after that.  It was pretty cool but then I like those kind of rides.  Once we got to the very top, you are in awe of this large white statue with her arms opened wide.  She has been ...

... 10-15 years left before God will appear to us and wipe out all of the sinners. He said he wanted to warn us so that we would have enough time to give our lives back to God and stop focusing on the "pleasures of the flesh". We thanked him for the tip and then returned to our beer drinking. I asked the guys what they were thinking when the older man mentioned that as a society we had to stop focusing on pleasuring our flesh. I asked this because I knew what ...

... no way that the bags were going to fit into the boot of this car. I put my backpack on and tried to work out what the **** had happened to my day. A guy was walking around with two walkie talkies and the kids seemed to be showing him some respect, so I called Rawda again, explained the situation and put on the guy with the walkie talkies. He spoke to them in a calmer and much more moderate volume of Arabic and came back to me and said "Do you speak English?" I answered ...

... and I guess didn't think to ask, learned that 3 of the 4 pools were closed, along with the beach, apparently in order to create a peaceful working environment for the two guys at the far end disinterestedly pushing sand around with a sifter, Hilary was charged something like $14 for towels and water (towels!) and breakfast turned into an Abbott and Costello sketch complete with hijinks, misunderstandings and bumbling waiters. The capper was the armed guard who didn't want to let us ...

... through the eerie ghost-town that was the downtown area; but this was Gemmayzeh - nightlife central - at peak time on a Friday night. Undeterred, however, we hit up a few bars along the strip and went about our personal missions of drunken fun. All in all we had a really fun night out (mainly thanks to each others' company), but we couldn't help feeling like we'd missed out on the true Beirut nightlife experience, and were left to wonder just how long it will take ...

... right now it's covered in snow. SO we looked, took pictures, and walked around. The drive there was spectacular. Driving through these small town along the mountainsides where Marronites used to hide out in caves. You can still see the caves. Sheer cliffs and huge mounatins and villages clinging to the sides. Waterfalls spouting off the edge - a little reminiscent of New Zealand! Snowcapped mountain ranges and everything. Lebanon is beautiful. To Be Continued . . .

... snapping myriad photos of each other on their cellphones. The Temple of Venus, or Assarte or, more probably, Bacchus (all that wine, not to mention the lead piping, seems to have addled them), scene of so much "luxury", is mostly intact (unless you count the ceiling) and fairly luxurious. Ironically, because of its proximity to the massive Temple of Jupiter, the temple was known as the small temple, despite being bigger than the Parthenon. The columns are fluted ...

... is very hot, and I have never experienced humidity like this before. I saw on t.v. that the humidity was at 80%. WHEEW! The resturaunt is all open, no walls and only a tarpe over head. Aley is alive with shops, horse carriages,tourist attractions,artists and crafts makers, fancy resturaunts, cafes.. and people are everywhere. The views of Beirut from the mountain is breathtaking. More from me later..