Remembering Lebanon, part 2

Roman city next to the Syrian border... if only I had had my passport on me I would have crossed the mountains and not turned back.

Map of the fertile croissant. As in many other Arabic countries, Israel is not recognized as a lawful state so it does not exist on the map.

Loulou in front of the temples of Venus

View from Baalbek on the Syrian border

Baalbek, the city of Baal. One of the most ancient cities in the world, you can see stratas of centuries of Art on the site. The city was called Baalbek for Phoenicians who worshipped Baal, the god of gods, god of rain, fertitility and regrowth, the lord of heavens. Then it was rebaptized Heliopolis by the Greeks, city of the sun where the sky was a pure blue for 315 days a year. After the Roman and Northern African occupation, it is now back to Baalbek and holds treasures of History.

My computer crashed before I could finish uploading my Lebanese pictures last week-end: this is the man who discovered and salvaged the biggest monolith in Asia. He personnally cleaned out the rubbish dump around it and fought over several years with his fellow inhabitants to educate them into not dropping their trash around anymore. For this purpose, he started a trash collection, which the city adpoted 11 months afterwards. He has a small souvenir shop next to the monolith and offers his visitors short cardamone coffees as thick as fuel when they enter. A lovely man, former soldier, simple and passionate, who made a big difference in this world.

Champagnista V