My Travels

The National Museum is actually quite nice, especially compared with national museums from many other similar countries.  The building is designed with large, Egyptian-looking closed lotus flower topped columns, and other than being slightly dirty (there isn’t much in this city which couldn’t benefit from a pressure washer), it’s in very good shape.  The contents are quite nice and...

I guess I have a thing for the Middle East.  There really is something fascinating about this part of the world.  I like the sense of history, the proud attitude of the people, and the lessons we could learn from them… if we are open to it.  After all, this used to be part of the “first world” long...

If you visit Lebanon, you will most likely be arriving and departing from Beirut, the capital and the largest city.  I'm fairly confident in this statement because of Lebanon's unfortunate physical location, making it difficult to access by land from either of it's neighboring countries. Why go? Beirut used to be called "the Paris of the Middle East" for it strong...

This visit was part of a Viator tour I took. The small town of Harissa hosts the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon.  Since it's foundation stone was laid in 1904, it has become an international pilgrimage site, a national site, a religious monument, a Marian shrine and a tourist attraction. The town which sits on a sharp rock cliff (the word...

This was part of a Viator tour I took which piced me up from my hotel in Beirut. The Jeita Grotto is a series of two interconnected karstic limestone caves which cover nearly 9 kilometers.  The tour divides them into an upper and lower cave, with separate entrances. Why go? While there are other such cave systems around the world, you can't...