Royal Garden Hotel Beirut

5 great days in Lebanon....OK, it was a little bit exhausting, tuesday morning I came back from Sarajevo and tuesday night I departed to Beirut. With the hotel we didn´t have much luck ("well, I see your reservation was canceled" (???) and "of course you have a room with a great view" and it was a room with a view on an ...

... should really re-think their decision; honestly, the people are very friendly and easy going. After lunch I went back to the hotel and waited for Ahmed and Chuck to come back from the Bank. I waited for 2 hours for them until I finally just gave in and figured I'd better get a cab if I wanted to see anything cultural. So I got a cab ride in a Mercedes and went to check out two places, Harissa and the Geitta cave. Holy ****! The first place was the cave, wow is ...

... vertus) et le doute. Car honnêtement, le charme de cet incroyable îlot de richesse au milieu d'un moyen orient aux accents plutôt ruraux, trouve assez rapidement les limites propres à tout édifice artificiel massif. Un bloc de béton, tout aussi agréable qu'il soit, est un bloc de béton. La critique est facile, et je ne m ...

... were going to join me. I am looking forward to it. Before I went to bed, I thought about what a crazy night it was. First I went to the Palestinian Refugee Camp where I saw so many people living in some pretty horrible conditions. Immediately after that, I went out to a bar that was less than 10 kms away from the camp. Here, you saw the other extreme - people who could afford to buy expensive drinks, drive fancy cars and wear designer clothes. There was something wrong with that. Dino Vagabond

... eaters but I enjoyed a halloumi sandwich. Following lunch LuAyy and I decided to try and find this place called Bait Mary that is situated on the top of a mountain. It was both of our first times in Beirut, we had no map, but decided we were invincible throughout our entire time in Lebanon. First we had a worker from the hotel show us partway where to go and then we were on our own. After driving up windy roads for some time we saw a sign ...

... cold, some huddled in front of trash can fires, blocking off streets. At one point, we were walking up behind these two guards, and they were walking at the exact same lazy pace, staggered by about ten feet, backs to us. One stops, turns 90 degrees towards us, pauses for about three seconds without seeing us, then turns around again and continues. I almost went up and slit his throat just because, you feel me? When we passed him he ...

... on by the Western media. Anyway, after an hour or so of detention outside this shop, they brought along some shisha for themselves. I was starting to get rather bored of the whole situation by this point and so enquired as to whether I might partake in a smoke. They were only too happy to oblige and handed me the shisha at once. So, there I was puffing away on a shisha pipe with about six Hizbullah officials, discussing life and politics, looking out onto a scene of ...

... per Dave's request, and I tried to play it with some of the younger students whose English is not as good yet. Let's just say it didn't go over so well! Oh well, we tried. Back to Hamara and NEST for postcards from a bookstore. Ed and I walked down to Bliss Street and checked out the American University of Beirut campus. I got a crepe and we walked back in the rain, managing to miss our turn and having to walk an extra 2 blocks in a downpour!

... Muslim inhabitants who used the site as a defensive fortress. The largest of the three temples at Baalbek is the temple of Jupiter which boasts the largest Roman columns ever erected. Four of these massive pillars are still standing, but there is evidence that when the temple was in use, 50 others of equal size supported the structure's massive roof. We stood for several minutes to marvel at the sheer size of structure and were even more shocked to learn that in Roman times ...

... to reel in an octopus!!). theres no beach along this stretch of coast, but that doesnt stop teenagers diving into the water to go for a swim among the rocks! theres vendors selling coffee, hot nuts, hooped bread... its a great place for people watching. at the end of the corniche are the pigeon rocks, (beiruts only natural feature) spectacular natural rock arches, where many tourists and locals gather to watch sunset, while drinking beer, eating ice ...