About Lebanon

Lebanon, gateway to the sun, Doorway to man's Spirit ! Lebanon is the mother of Europe. Europa was the daughter of the king of Tyre, carried away by the god Zeus who appeared to her under the form of a bull and with her scoured the continent that now bears her name. The awesome valley of the river Nahr Ibrahim was the scene of the Dionysian Mysteries which celebrated the love of Ishtar (Aphrodite, Venus) and Adonis, who died and was reborn with the bacchanalia. The written characters of the Phonicians were the basis of the Greek alphabet and the four-yearly games were another gift of Lebanon to Greece, to become famous later as the Olympics.

Lebanon is also a Holy Land, for the Gospels tell us that Christ came to Tyre and Sidon, preached there and performed a miracle to cure a Canaanite women. He performed his first public miracle here, changing water into wine, for now both historical references in the Church Fathers and archæological evidence confirm that the place referred to by John the Evangelist was the Cana of South Lebanon.

In the Beirut area there are universities and hospitals of international standing. All along the coast there are restaurants, beach lidos and places of entertainment of every description, and of course supermarkets put all the brand names of the world at the disposition of the client.

One can never be weary of Lebanon because there is so much variety in a country only 10,452 km or 4,180 miles square. In a little less than an hour's drive from the coast one reaches heights of over 2,000 metres or 7,000 feet without leaving the road. There is fine skiing at a time when the Mediterranean is warmer than the North Sea is in summer.

While Arabic is the national language, everywhere there are people who speak English and French, while those of Beirut are largely trilingual. On the seaward slopes of the Lebanon range one is in the world of the Mediterranean, as shown by the traditional architectural forms, the local cuisine and even in some villages the peasant dress. In half an hour one can cross the mountain divide and in the Bekaa Valley find oneself in a world more Arab by its climate, the style of the houses and even the men's dress in some of the Christian and Muslim villages. The coastal climate is ideal in spring and autumn, though rather hot, humid and cloudy from late July to mid-September. But throughout the summer the climate of the Beqaa Valley and the higher mountain slopes is very dry and the sky always blue, so the sun is not at all disagreeable but rather enjoyable.

There is probably no other country in the world where a foreigner so easily feels thoroughly at home, thanks to the open-mindedness of all the inhabitants of Lebanon whatever their religion and community. One finds whole villages tucked away on the mountain slopes whose beauty and prosperity is due to emigrants who have made their fortune in the Americas and there are great numbers of professional men who have pursued their studies in the universities of Europe and the New World.

The Christians belong to various Catholic and Orthodox Churches of the Eastern rites. As for Muslims, there are Sunnites and Shi' ites, as well as Druze. Foreign news media and outside efforts to disrupt Lebanon by a so-called civil war have given a totally false impression of the relations between the different religious communities in Lebanon and the visitor can feel totally at ease anywhere.

Lebanon is a land whose cities go back to the fifth millennium before Christ. At Baalbek one may see the world's largest Roman temple complex, while Beiteddine and Deir al-Qamar are a fairyland.

Lebanon is a land of such attraction that even during the worst years of the war waged in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990, large numbers of foreign residents could not find it in their hearts to leave it. This will probably be the feeling of every visitor to the land.