Byblos

Last weekend Elisa, Josh and I headed north to the old fishing village of Byblos (Jbail in Arabic). It’s said to be one of the oldest continuously occupied towns in the world and the birthplace of the modern alphabet, but the trip there made it seem like a suburb of Beirut. The unchecked development since the end of the war has created a nightmarish track of high-rise apartments in various stages of construction and decay along the coast, engulfing the old towns and villages. But once we made it down to the little harbor we fell in love…. even though the beautifully restored souqs (markets) were a bit of a tourist trap.

We spent a few hours tramping through an enormous and imposing crusader castle, built with stones scavenged from the Roman ruins on which it was built; marvelled at the view from the crumbling remains of a Roman theater overlooking the lazuli Mediterranean sea; and clambered down into old Phoenician tombs from 2000 B.C. Then, exhausted, we feasted on a seafood mezzae as the sun set over the harbor.