Byblos, Lebanon – Part 1

This past weekend was Eid Al Adha which is what the locals call “the Big Eid” because we get more days off.  We were anticipating to only get 1 day off out of the 3 day holiday because it was predicted to start on Friday (with Fri & Sat being our weekend), but the moon was generous this time around and the holiday was declared to start on Saturday meaning we got Sunday and  Monday off.  A nice bonus :)

We decided to head to Lebanon for our holiday since the weather is nice in the region and we want to save up our longer travels for when the weather is less than desirable here in the Middle East.  After talking with some friends, many of which are Lebanese, we decided to go to Byblos over Beirut.  Everyone who has been to Beirut said it was awesome, but we were looking for a little bit more of a getaway relaxing weekend out of the hustle and bustle of a city.  Byblos (or Jbeil as it’s currently called) was WONDERFUL.

Side Note: Byblos is said to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world (founded around 5,000 BC)!  Also, the name Byblos is Greek and is the origin of the word “Bible” because the papyrus used to make the first bibles was exported from Byblos.

DAY 1

We took off a little early on Thursday to head to the airport to catch our flight out.  As you can see in the photo below, we had no trouble winding down in preparation for a weekend of relaxation :)  We flew through Doha which is a less than desirable experience, but the tickets were cheaper and we didn’t have any real issues getting to Lebanon.

Getting in the right state of mind for the vacation

When we got to the Beirut airport we found our driver which we had arranged through our hotel.  After about 1 hour of driving a bit reminiscent of the UAE we arrived at our hotel—Edde Sands e l’hotel.  As we had let them know it was a late celebration of our 3 year wedding anniversary, they gave us a nice romantic welcome in our room.  It was pretty late by the time we got in so we just stayed at the hotel the first night.

 

 

Day 2

The next day we got up and headed down to the connecting Edde Sands Resort for breakfast.  Wow!  Breakfast was amazing.  There was so much delicious food that we didn’t each lunch any of the days we were there!

This was just a quarter or our breakfast.  (In photo: bowl of labneh; plate of tomatoes, feta, cucumbers, olives, and mint; plate of 3 types of cheeses)

Le peche du jour ( The catch of the day) – The Lebanese restaurant at the resort where we had breakfast the first two mornings

After thoroughly enjoying breakfast we walked back up to our hotel to get grab some stuff and head over to the town of Byblos.  When we left the restaurant where we had breakfast, the staff had a little trouble understanding why we would want to walk in the cold drizzle, but we were loving the rain and cooler weather.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was the beautiful view from our balcony.  It rained every day while we were there, but it was so pretty to see the storms roll in and listen to the thunder.  I took a lot of photos from our balcony.  I’ll try to spare you and only post a select few :)

View of the resort and Mediterranean from our hotel balcony

We walked towards Byblos past the ruins and into the old souk area.  It was a pretty area with lots of stone.  We kept walking until we got to the water where we ended up at the little port of Byblos which was really pretty.

The old souk area

My fearless leader finding a path towards the water

The port

Though Lebanon is still in a state of turmoil, we really didn’t encounter any tension;  the only signs we really saw were just people like this at various parts of the country in camo and guns slung over their shoulders

After we walked around the port area we headed back towards the main town of Byblos and then back to our hotel as the sun came out!



We took a cat nap and got woken up by some crazy thunder from a storm rolling in.  Of course I jumped up and snapped a few shots from our room.  While I was on the balcony there was a lightning bolt that I promise was no farther than 30 yards away!  It made me jump and Paul’s ears were ringing.  Watching the storm roll in was so pretty.

Then that evening, I convinced Paul to go with me to a free yoga class that was being held at the resort.  I love it.  Paul, on the other hand, thought it was a bit heavy on the meditation and focus on breathing :)  It probably also didn’t help that the instructed gave half of the instructions in French, which I thought was perfect, but obviously Paul didn’t understand them.  Another thing that I didn’t really expect about our trip was that I got to practice my French quite a bit between the yoga class, talking with our taxi drivers and shop owners.  In Lebanon, the first language is Arabic, then French (as they were colonized by France after the Ottoman Empire), then English.

After yoga we got ready for dinner which was at a restaurant that one of Paul’s coworkers recently opened in Byblos.  The restaurant is called 1188 Lounge Bar.  It was really a beautiful atmosphere with the old stone, delicious food, and great sangria.  Paul had shrimp stuffed calamari and I had a caesar salad for our starter followed by a wonderful steak and topped off with their signature 1188 dessert (like tiramisu).  We left very satisfied.

We scoped out the place earlier that day when we were walking around Byblos

Yummmmmmmmm!