Tyre (Sour or Sur) and onwards - March 19th

At the end of the first day of driving, we reached another Phoenician city at the Southern-most tip of Lebanon. It was apparently once an island connected by a causeway (built by Alexander the Great?) and was famous as the Tyrian merchants (the first to navigate the Mediterranean) made famous the purple dye of the nobility - Tyrian purple.
After arriving, we settled into our hotel in the Christian quarter in Christian quarter and walked along the cornich and viewed the archaeological sites... the last one reached just before sundown (pictured below). As you walk down the long road, it is entirely possible to imagine Roman visitors driving chariots down this road... all the stones still in place, with aquaducts and evidence of real city planning! The two photos below show the Al Mina archaeological site - the first one we encountered on our stroll of the cornich - this one with a public bath, a Roman theater, palace site and another road lined with imposing columns.

These final two photos show the harbour... just a couple of minutes from our hotel. This was the view from the restaurant "Le Phoenician" where we enjoyed garlic basted prawns, calamari, little achovy-sized crispy fish, fatoush salad and wine from the Bekkha Valley in Lebanon.

How hard it is going to be returning to land-locked Kurdistan?