A busy and very pleasant weekend. On Saturday we stayed in Beirut, first going to find some knafeh, a sweet cheese breakfast sort-of-pastry, then strolled through the rather odd Villa Audi museum. This is a merchant’s mansion that has a display of mosaics, but there were a couple of temporary exhibitions up that were just hung, willy nilly, over the mosaics, not in any meaningful dialogue or anything. The mosaics were much better than the two exhibitions; one a regional (but largely Italian) contemporary show, and the other photographs of the Lebanese army.
In the evening we decided to find ourselves an Armenian meal in Bourj Hammoud, which proved to be a challenge. We walked through some lovely, rather poor, Armenian neighbourhoods with rusting train tracks running down them, to find that the bridge over the Beirut river actually a miles long motorway flyover without a pedestrian pavement. Though there were people walking over it anyway we decided to go around the long way instead. We found first one and then a second restaurant closed, but the third was open and run by a lovely Armenian family who were clearly pleased to have non-locals try their foods. It was very good of course, the manti in particular. I had had these once before but found them disappointing – this was the real deal and very tasty.
On Sunday we made a spur of the moment booking for a car and driver to take us up to the Shouf mountains. We walked through the cedar reserve, past trees centuries old and a couple millennia old. There was a pleasant 40 minute path along the hillside, overlooking the valleys, and the air was cool. Along the way, in roadside villages we saw small Venezuelan restaurants, speaking to Lebanese emigration.
By the time we got to the next stop, the air was decidedly no longer cool. The Beiteddine Palace, an Ottoman palace, was a bit of a disappointment. It was quite crowded which was part of it, but more than that, it was not managed with much sensitivity, and even more than that, it was just not that interesting. The final stop was Deir-al-Qamar, a village called the Monastery of the Moon. This was a tough, stone-built hill town, like a blockier version of your Provencal hilltop villages. The best bit was the emptiest: there were streets lined with golden stone walls and houses, quiet and empty. The church was dedicated to Mary who is portrayed here in a former Roman temple with an Artemis-like moon coronet. There was a Maronite christianing just ending but otherwise it was a fairly plain church, with the stone interior that speaks of the Holy Land, but little ornamentation. The mosque was even plainer, but small and dark it was very cool in the afternoon light.
Lunch was at a roadside restaurant, a shawarma each, and then we returned, very tired. All in all the cedars were the highlight followed by the short walk through the streets of Deir-al-Qamar, but we have tentatively booked the car and driver again next weekend for another trip.