Byblos to Tripoli - March 20

Seeing as Byblos was just the most fabulous city with the most comfortable hotel (aptly named Comfort Hotel) of our stay, it doesn't really seem fair that it has to share this post with Trpoli, but that's the time frame of our visit. After driving for hours through tiny winding roads taking us up and around and over mountains trying to get to Baalbek (on the east coast of Lebanon) from Tyre, we were finally turned away by soldiers at a checkpoint... apparently we had ventured too far over towards "Palestine" and too deep into areas controlled by the Hezbollah and we had to head back to Beirut... so rather than keep trying, we just continued up along the western coast to Byblos (about 90 minutes from Beirut). We ate and slept and saw Byblos the next morning.

The above photos show the site at Byblos... also known as Gebal and Jbeil. (PS. You might be interested to know that we noticed a sign in the Erbil airport announcing the opening of Byblos Bank on the 60 Meter Road right here in Hawler!). These sights were very interesting to note that they had found evidence of city-living here dating back to the Bronze and Iron ages, the Hellenistic period, not to mention Byzantine and Roman empire remains, evidence of Egyptian and Phoenician trade and influence, the arrival of the Crusaders, the Persians and others... and all of this was very clearly signposted in English, French and Arabic by.... the Governate of Antiquities of QUEBEC!
And there are so many other photos I'd like to include here... like the picture of construction on a main street through the Bazaar, which appeared to be dug up for city waterworks... a project that was clearly on hold as the workers apparently accidentally unearthed Byzantine (I guess) mosaic flooring. But instead I leave you with the image of a sunset over the harbour... where we later (days later) stopped to have a nice fish dinner at a restaurant with a view and very surly wait staff.
After viewing the sites of Byblos in the rain, we hit the road again to our last coastal and most northerly destination, Tripoli. This proved to be a bit of a disappointment. Although apparently one a beautiful city (which vied with Sidon for the production and export of soap), the buildings all scaling the sides of a small mountain, are now weathered and ugly... even the recently constructed ones. The city streets were narrow and hard to navigate, so we finally settled on a 4 star (the one of this caliber on our trip) hotel down by the water and taxied in to the city to see the "sights". Below is my trusty colleagues standing at the entrance to a medieval souk where we bought (what else?) soap!
And this final picture was the highlight of Tripoli... a beautiful crusader castle later used by the Ottomans. Soldiers still appeared to be using this well-preserved castle and although the sight of the city down the side of the hills wasn't so lovely, overhead flocks of birds adorned with tiny bells swooped overhead, following the instructions of their owners who seemed to be whistling and cooing instructions to the bids from their high-rise apartment windows.