Chateau Ksara... & Anjar - March 23

On March 23rd, we got off to a little bit of a late start as in the 30 minute chill period- the one after breakfast and before taking to the roads, we discovered that the movie "The Shining" was on... something we had seen the start of in our hotel rooms in Tripoli, but couldn't stay awake for. (Of course I was the only one who had never seen this classic before). After the Shining, we drove out of the valley and visited the oldest of Bekkha Valley's (and Lebanon's) winery - now no longer Caves du Ksara, but Chateau Ksara.

After our tour of the winery (which was only in recent times sold by the Jesuits who discovered the natural caves formerly used by the Romans under the establishment - an environment perfect for storing wine), we were pretty hungry and headed to Anjar- lunch before ruins. Now largely inhabited by Armenians who escaped from Turkey during the genocide, Anjar is famous (with respect to food) for trout which the Armenians have farmed. (PS. The owners/managers of our hotel in Zahle are also Armenians who escaped from Diyarbakir in East Turkey - now a Kurdish stronghold. The youngest of hotel employees have never actually been to Diyarbakir however).

In the 8th century, Aanjar or Haoush Mousa (farm of Moses) was a Umayyad stronghold... a kind of capital of the Isalmic empire (before it was moved to Damascus). As you can see from the photos below, the ruins are really well preserved. The inhabitants of the city in the 8th Centiry were really resourceful as there is evidence of them recycling stones and columns they discovered from past empires and surrounding sites.
As we wandered around what was once small shops, we noted that this site was really primarily just one MASSIVE shopping mall... Our Naza Mall in Erbil looks pretty humble in comparison. However, the walls still standing in the picture below were part of a palace wall...
And the final picture (below) is Byzantine mosaic from a public bath house.
So long Anjar - back to the Hotel Monte Alberto for the final night before heading back to Zahle.