Today we will head north out of Beirut and try to visit two of Lebanon's significant tourist destinations. It might sound odd to say this but finding them will prove to be a challenge. The problem is that signage is almost non existent. I think the vast majority of them go by organized tours or taxi.
The first objective is the Jeita Grottoes. These are a limestone cave gallery system. The system was first discovered by the Western world in 1836 by an American missionary having a bit of downtime. In fact there is plenty of evidence of human habitation in prehistoric times. The cave system was in the top 14 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature decided by poll in 2011.
There are two levels open to the public, an upper which you visit on foot and the lower where boats are used.
From the visitor centre there is a cable car to take you up to the first gallery. In their wisdom the organisers have banned all photography within the caves which makes promotion of the place by the visitors rather tricky. No flash I can understand, but this rule seems a little short sighted. The result is that these images you are looking at have been obtained by a rather nefarious route.
A pair of downloaded documents I'm afraid and both of the lower cavern. They are more colourful than we experienced, however the caves were undoubtedly very impressive.
At 8.2 meters the upper gallery claims to have "one of the longest stalactites in the world". As they reportly grow at the rate of between a quarter inch and an inch every century, let's do some maths on the biggy. 8.2 meters = 322.854 inches. Let's say 323 for the sake of simplicity and let's say it's growing nearer to the faster rate of three quarters of an inch per century, then to reach it's present size it will take 431 centuries or 43,100 years. All that was assuming a constant growth rate and I don't suppose it did but our three quarters inch average should iron out the variations. Conclusion, not long in geological time, I guess but I'm still pleased that we didn't take a hammer to one. Any geologists out there who want to comment?
We had one of those road train thingees to transport us down from upper to lower caverns.
The shot below gives a better idea of the colours. There's some colouration present due to the different salts in the water. This is the upper cave where a concrete pathway has been built in to improve visitor access.
The whole trip took a couple of hours and now it was time to head north to Byblos. Just before we reached Byblos we turned off the highway looking for a beach and lunch break. Serendipitously we found this little beach bar that suited our purpose very nicely.
Let me tell you a little of the background to Byblos, which is incidentally one of Lebanon's UNESCO world heritage sites.
It's recorded history goes back 7000 years, it was known as Gibal in Biblical times when the Canaanites traded from here. The Phoenicians inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics invented the first phonetic 22 letter alphabet which was adopted by the Greeks in 800 BCE. This later became the foundation of the Roman alphabet. The name Byblos refers to the papyrus trade from this dock.
Surrounded by Roman debris.
Roman and Crusader ruins add to the picturesque nature of the view.
Beer festival on Roman street. I bet the Romans would have loved it.
Apart from the ancient archeological sites you can see, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Crusader and Otterman ruins. There is a pretty little harbour with outside bars and restaurants and the old souk area is now selling souvenirs. Ironically there was a German beer festival taking place during our visit which was just warming up as we left. Now there was just the challenge of driving back to Beirut and finding the hotel again.
The first objective is the Jeita Grottoes. These are a limestone cave gallery system. The system was first discovered by the Western world in 1836 by an American missionary having a bit of downtime. In fact there is plenty of evidence of human habitation in prehistoric times. The cave system was in the top 14 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature decided by poll in 2011.
There are two levels open to the public, an upper which you visit on foot and the lower where boats are used.
From the visitor centre there is a cable car to take you up to the first gallery. In their wisdom the organisers have banned all photography within the caves which makes promotion of the place by the visitors rather tricky. No flash I can understand, but this rule seems a little short sighted. The result is that these images you are looking at have been obtained by a rather nefarious route.
A pair of downloaded documents I'm afraid and both of the lower cavern. They are more colourful than we experienced, however the caves were undoubtedly very impressive.
At 8.2 meters the upper gallery claims to have "one of the longest stalactites in the world". As they reportly grow at the rate of between a quarter inch and an inch every century, let's do some maths on the biggy. 8.2 meters = 322.854 inches. Let's say 323 for the sake of simplicity and let's say it's growing nearer to the faster rate of three quarters of an inch per century, then to reach it's present size it will take 431 centuries or 43,100 years. All that was assuming a constant growth rate and I don't suppose it did but our three quarters inch average should iron out the variations. Conclusion, not long in geological time, I guess but I'm still pleased that we didn't take a hammer to one. Any geologists out there who want to comment?
We had one of those road train thingees to transport us down from upper to lower caverns.
The shot below gives a better idea of the colours. There's some colouration present due to the different salts in the water. This is the upper cave where a concrete pathway has been built in to improve visitor access.
Let me tell you a little of the background to Byblos, which is incidentally one of Lebanon's UNESCO world heritage sites.
It's recorded history goes back 7000 years, it was known as Gibal in Biblical times when the Canaanites traded from here. The Phoenicians inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics invented the first phonetic 22 letter alphabet which was adopted by the Greeks in 800 BCE. This later became the foundation of the Roman alphabet. The name Byblos refers to the papyrus trade from this dock.
Surrounded by Roman debris.
Roman and Crusader ruins add to the picturesque nature of the view.
Beer festival on Roman street. I bet the Romans would have loved it.
Apart from the ancient archeological sites you can see, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Crusader and Otterman ruins. There is a pretty little harbour with outside bars and restaurants and the old souk area is now selling souvenirs. Ironically there was a German beer festival taking place during our visit which was just warming up as we left. Now there was just the challenge of driving back to Beirut and finding the hotel again.
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