The best laid plans, …. And that’s how our planned trip to Lebanon started. When we first looked at places to visit before heading to Montenegro, I swear we found easy flights from Montenegro to Beirut for our visit to our friend Sandy who we met when she was an exchange student in the USA. In addition to taking in a local’s view of Lebanon I was also planning on giving a talk on race walking. Apparently, they either changed the entire schedule or I was having a senior moment because the only flights into Lebanon landed at 3 AM. Not wanting to do that to Sandy, or us for that matter, we decided to burn a day with a pit stop in Athens. This made the flights easy and we got to have a great dinner and sneak in a photo shoot at the Athens Luxury Suites. A small hotel, they had a simple, wide open rooftop that we could relax on while taking in the Parthenon. The owner couldn’t have been more lovely. It was just a shame we had to leave so quickly.

Arriving in Lebanon, we were worried if we’d have any trouble getting through customs. You aren’t allowed to visit Lebanon if you have Israel stamped in your passport. I knew this going into the trip and haven’t been to Israel in 30 years so I figured we were fine. However, it got me curious. How many countries forbid entry this way. The list was longer than I expected and included Saudi Arabia. Guessing they are not quite the friends we think they are. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Sandy was waiting for us as we emerged. We dropped our bags at her parent’s place, met the family and partook in our first of many large Lebanese meals. Dish after dish, our diets were D-O-N-E, DONE. After a brief breather, we then wasted no time heading out the first of MANY, MANY sites. We took a tram to the top of the city, caught the view from
Harissa at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon. We also attended a festival where they close the street at night called Be Noss Jounieh. Oh and the tour of food was just warming up.

We headed out early the next morning for a trip to the Phoenician ruins of Baalbek. They have a little something over us when it comes to history as their first residents occupied the land over 5,000 to 10,000 years ago (depending on who you cite). However, before the tour, we stopped for a quick “healthy” breakfast of mankousheh in multiple varieties of Jebneh (cheese) and Zaatar (thyme). In addition to stopping at Naji’s home town of Zahle.

The ruins were fanatic, and unlike many tourist destinations it wasn’t swamped with people.

Obviously, we did a wedding dress shot, #290 if you are counting.

Tour guides Sandy and Naji would not let us rest. Of course, the next stop wasn’t too hard. We stopped at the oldest winery in Lebanon, Chateau Ksara, took a tour of the underground caves which store the aging wine, and we might have done a flight of wine tasting.

Sandy and Naji then took us to lunch at a restaurant known for it’s mesa dishes. It was a virtual all you can eat, as every dish was over sized for the four of us. We did a lot of damage, but the table won. We certainly couldn’t finish all of it.

OK, we needed a break. A chill day at the beach. Barracuda beach to be specific, where we met Sandy’s friend Eva who is her sports nutritionist. I made the mistake of getting on the body fat analysis machine after travelling for over two weeks. Let’s just say I have a lot more fat than I did when I competed in college. We had a seaside lunch and then relaxed for a few hours.

Next, we took a tour of the surrounding town, which of course started with a stop in the local microbrewery. Who knew Passion Fruit beer was a thing? Let alone, a really good thing. It might have inspired me to try my vast athletic skills (gross exaggeration for those that don’t know me personally) on the local balance board. I will call it a success, because in addition to no bones being broken, I didn’t damage the bar.

Sadly we didn’t bring the dress with us and missed what could have been an intriguing wedding dress shot. There was a 2,000 year old Phoenician sea wall.

We continued the tour of food with Sandy’s favorite Ashta ice cream. It wasn’t until we got home that we resorted to healthy fruit and called it a day.

The next morning I got up early to go to track practice and then met up with Jennifer and Sandy’s mom while Sandy had to finish some school work. We headed downtown, but unfortunately, many of the shops were closed due to some form of political protest. While I was inquisitive, I take a pass on participating in protests while traveling. Instead, we wound our way around the harbor, were again we had a missed wedding dress opportunity. An unfinished hotel stood before us with a giant wedding cake that could easily fit Jennifer inside. We asked permission, but were turned down. So, the tour of food continued as Sandy met up with us.

That night he charged our bodies with a ridiculous amount of sushi before we headed up to the mountains next for a hike and a quieter locale. On the way, we picked up breakfast and dessert for later. We then hiked down to the Chouwen Lake (looked more like a river), explored another area with man-made lakes, and visited Baatara Gorge. While still very cool, it would have been even more amazing in the spring with the waterfall dropping between the three natural stone arches.

You’d think we’d be done at this point, but we were still pushing ahead full steam. Next stop was the town of Byblos and another wedding dress shot.

Before heading back to the city, we headed to The Cedars. The Cedar tree is the national tree of Lebanon and they have a park dedicated to the biblical tree. We paused for another wedding dress shot before packing the dress away for the trip.

Still work was not done, as I gave a talk to the Lebanese Track and Field Association on how to race walk as well as watch Sandy win the
Lebanese Individual National Championship. Her time was not as fast as when she set the national record, but we may have slowed her down a bit with all the food we ate.

Huge thanks to Sandy, her family, Naji and Eva for being such wonderful hosts and allowing us to see a country that wouldn’t have been on our radar without the personal connection. Whenever you travel, a lesson we have learned countless times is reinforced. People are alike all over.