Return to Beirut

The excellent weather of the last few days broke with the arrival of the system that had been lurking further West in the Med. The clouds gathered and just before we left, the heavens opened and played percussion on the glass roof of the reception area.

Modern Cathedral

Despite yesterday's prediction, after heading back towards Beirut, we twisted back up the hills just inland from the coast. The objective was a medium sized statue on top of a massive plinth. This was the Lady of Lebanon - aka the Virgin Mary. She is venerated by both Christians and Muslims - the latter celebrate 25th December as her day. The plinth has a spiral staircase on the outside by which a small balcony at her feet can me accessed. We were told that this spiral effect also made it look as if she was blessing all around her rather than just in front. Close by was a massive modern cathedral which was supposed to invoke an image of an upturned boat or ark - unfortunately it seemed to be securely locked up.

Further down the road we visited the Stele of Nar El Kaleb which were situated between a motorway fly over and a slip road. They were a series of inscribed stone tablets in the hill side celebrating great events in Lebanon's history. The ones we could see - there were others but the wet steps made them too dangerous to visit recorded various milestones - most seemed to have military aspects - freedom from the Ottomans, freedom from the Turks, there had been one for Ramases - one of the Egyptians Pharaohs - but the bumptious little Sicilian Emperor had replaced it with one of his own ! The most mundane was one commemorating the completion of the Hyfa to Tripoli railway by the Australian Railway Company.

Roman Glass

No visit to a country would be complete without a visit to its National Museum. This one is quite small, airy and well lit - with enough artifacts to make a visit interesting without becoming boring - there was some equisite Roman glass. What perhaps made it stand out from others of its ilk was the fact that it had stood on the Green Line that had separated the two sides during the Civil War. After the cease fire, the columns at the front entrance looked as if they had been subject to thousands of years of wheather rather than just a few years of gun fire. Evidently many of the exhibits had been encased in conecrte by the staff to protect them from harm & looting - it's a shame something similar wasn't done in Bagdad !

Some of our number are heading back home tomorrow - some of our current number are just visiting Lebanon, some Lebanon & Syria and some Jordan as well. Or so they throught until news filtered through that both Heathrow & Schipol airports had been closed because of snow. The seven who are heading on to Syria have an early start and most stocked up with nibbles in case we get delayed in the two sets of mountains we have to cross to get to the border. The other speculation is whether the people flying in to join us in Syria will be able to escape Europe !

So far WiFi has been readily available but in Syria it may be more sparse - as a consequence bulletins from the Levant may stutter a bit - we shall see.