a weekend in lebanon.

holidays seem to be a lot fewer and far between here in the middle east than when i was living in italy.

part of it is because the holidays aren't planned in advance most of the time.

since many holidays in muslim countries are based on the moon (islam uses a lunar calendar) the holidays aren't announced until the moon has been sighted within a certain window of time.

but, thanksgiving was a planned weekend, so lindsay, lynn and i planned to go to beirut, lebanon for that weekend.

warning- photo overload coming. a lot of the pictures look so nice, i just can't decide which ones to share!

after a late night, in the rain struggle to find our airbnb, this was what we found in the morning.

blue skies!

scattered street art.

the wiring was completely reminiscent of southeast asia.

we decided to spend our first day wandering about...with a few sights in mind, figuring we'd just let the day play out and see what happened.

the mohammad al-amin mosque, a sunni muslim mosque located in downtown beirut.

cool things to see if you look left and right!

ruins next to the mosque.

it was funny because we happened at this spot just as a very large and somewhat ominous appearing protest headed this way. we took some pictures and quickly got out of the way before we became the next americans on the nightly news.

seems every city has their own photo op just waiting for ya!

the nearby harbor.

if you look closely, you'll notice that some apartments in the building appear occupied.

and others don't even have windows and appear destroyed.

i was quite curious about it.

there's a looooooong boardwalk along the harbor.

the raouche rocks, beirut's iconic rock formations.

the second day we hired a driver to take us outside of the city to some other notable sights. he was so helpful and basically planned the whole day for us and accommodated any of our requests.

we went to the jeita grotto, but no photos are allowed, so you'll have to click the link to see it! it was cool, and worth the time to make a stop there.

we took the cable car up to our lady of lebanon.

that ride was something else.

but the views were definitely worth it.

views from the byblos citadel.

byblos is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

the clouds and storms in the distance made for some incredible photos.

we had a great meal at local lebanese restaurant, feniqia, which was just a little walk up from the harbor.

my travel buddies for the weekend, lynn and lindsay!

we ate here, twice, so we definitely recommend it!

we also had a great driver for our day trip out of beirut. you can reach salah at +961 79 101 909 via what's app and he'll happily help you plan whatever you need and give you a fair price.