Is anyone out there?

If anyone is reading this, Leb11 was my travel blog for my summer in Lebanon in 2011.  I actually moved to Lebanon this past September, so now you can follow my Leb (and other) adventures at alittlehypergraphia.blogspot.com.  Hope to see you there!

Tripoli

Sorry to have not posted in a while, but I've been busy... traveling back to America!  I'm just started to get over my jet lag and thought I would go ahead and finish some posts I started when I was in Lebanon, so you can expect a few more Leb posts to leak out over the next week or so.

Our last Saturday we went to Tripoli, the second largest city in Lebanon.  Tripoli is known for many things, but it's famous in Lebanon for its sweets. I wanted to post a picture for you, but I didn't take any and apparently no one else did either.
I have a confession to make.  I'm not that cultured.  I'm not a super picky eater, but there are some things that just aren't on my pallet, and baklava and these types of sweets are some of them.  It's doesn't help that I don't like nuts.  Have no fear though!  I still found some sweets for me.  Cooper (the 2 year old) and I split a kiddie cannon, which is a ice cream sundae served in the shape of a cannon.  We both loved it, which only reinforces my suspicion that I don't act my age. 

Tripoli also has ruins from a castle. 

The castle was once held under siege so there is a tunnel that runs underground from the castle to the sea.  Of course I had to go through it, because we all know that crawling in 1000 year old tunnels is just my thing.  It doesn't go all the way to the sea now, but we went as far as we could.  Worth it!

It starts with this inconspicuous doorway.

From there we headed down some stairs.

Past the crumbling room...

Then we ducked in a doorway and went down these spiral stairs. They went
several stories underground.

It was very dark under there!  We ended up using
our camera flashes as a light to navigate the eroding stairs. 

Above ground again we climbed some scaffolding to get some pictures of Tripoli.  The scaffolding wasn't quite finished though...

What could've made daring the scaffolding worth it?  That mountain in the back is Syria!  Or so I'm told...

This was my first time in Tripoli but it's easily one of my favorite places in Lebanon.

Byblos

One Saturday some friends and I traveled to about 45 minutes north of Beirut to Byblos, the oldest continually settled place on earth.  Byblos is home to a castle, a Crusader's church, some ruins of Roman rule, and a market where they sell everything.

The Crusader's Castle

Outside of the castle, there are ruins from the Phonecian era.
The Phonecians invented the first alpahbet. 

The Market



The Crusader's Church- It was decorated for a wedding this day.

 Although Byblos is the oldest city on earth, somehow modernity has a way of sneaking in.  Many things in the market have cause me to scratch my head, including a Tupac backpack, a George Bush backpack, and an NRA poker set.  How they got there I have no idea, but right now I'm wishing I would've gotten pictures. 

Harissa

Just north of Beirut at Harissa there's a statue of Mary.  People from all over Lebanon travel there to pray and take in the views of the city. To get there you have to take a cable car and an incline car, which is part of the fun of the trip. 

Beirut

The Beirut Port

At the top there is a food court and some stores, and then it's a short walk to the statue.

100 stairs in a spiral staircase lead to the statue. 

My purse was really heavy so Mikey carried it up for me.  Poor guy,
he was trying to be nice and helpful  but everyone was looking
at him like he was so weird with his big coral purse. 

The Statue of Mary

The views from the top are amazing. 

Cooper's favorite part of the day (other than eating all of my pasta at lunch and refusing to eat his) was the incline car ride.  His little 2-year-old life is an adventure every day...

Baalbek



Saturday we headed to Baalbek, home to the ruins of the 3 largest Roman temples.   

Yes, we did ride camels at the temples.  Sean (above) got
on his and said, "This is by far the most touristy thing
we've done since we've been here."

The temple of Jupiter, or Baal to the Phoenicians, is the the largest in the world. 

Unfortunately when I got home I discovered that there was a smudge
on my camera lens all day, so all of my pictures from Baalbek
have this hazy area on them. 

This trim work fell from the roof.  The eggs represent fertility,
while the leaves at the bottom and the 'teeth' above represent
 youth and old age respectively.  Something on here somewhere
represents death (bad memory), so that the whole circle of
life is inscribed in the stone.



These pillars are huge!

This sign is original to the Phoenician era of the temple.

    

 We climbed into some of the podiums that used to house the statues and took the liberty of making some poses of our own. 

 

The smallest of the 3 temples is the temple of Bacchus, the best preserved temple in the world. 

The day we were there some men were installing bleachers
for the upcoming festival.  I think Baalbek puts any of our
venues in America to shame. 



This column just tipped over one day.  The next picture shows where
it pushed a stone in the wall out a little bit. 

The stone 2nd from the top in the column was pushed when the
column behind it fell.  This is how archaeologists knew that there
was nothing between the stones holding them together.  They're just
stacked and kept together by precise cuts and mutual weight. 

Down the road from Baalbek is the cite of a quarry where some of the
stone was mined.  This stone is the largest stone in the world!  How they
tell such things I do not know, but it took 40,000 men to move it
when it was cut.  There's a little flag on the top claiming it in
the name of Lebanon. 





Jeita Grotto

On Saturday we traveled a little north of Beirut to Jeita Grotto.  The Grotto is a series of caves with crystallized limestone.  The Lebanese are very proud of Jeita Grotto, and they should be; it's in the running to be in the new 7 Wonders of the World!


To get to the Grotto, we had to take a bus, a cable car and a small train.
Cooper was really excited.  This might have been his favorite day ever. 


I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the caves, but you can see them on their website, or here.

If you are interested in the New 7 Wonders, you can check them out here:  The New 7 Wonders Website

Jeita Grotto has made it into the top 28; you can view their profile or vote for them here:  Jeita Grotto's New 7 Wonders Profile
 

Outside of the Grotto there's a statue of the Guardian of Time.
I know you can't tell very well from this shot, but he's huge!