Lebanon - Middle East harmony (sea and mountains)
When choosing a country of travel for a week-long winter holiday in mid-December, we were guided by the following principles:
1) the ability to take tickets without queues and the traditional pre-holiday fuss and unthinkable overpayments;
2) lack of a visa;
3) exoticism and "non-beatenness" of the country;
4) the opportunity to combine skiing with sightseeing;
5) an almost guaranteed absence of Russian tourists who, despite the crisis, must spend the long New Year holidays to the fullest;
6) security in general, and for two women in particular
As a result of a brief acquaintance with the world map, virtually the only country that met all of the above conditions as of December 2008 was Lebanon.
So, in order:
1) an Aeroflot ticket from January 9 to January 17.2009 cost 19.600 rubles. “Sincerely ours” Aeroflot took an extra thousand for issuing an electronic ticket at its office on Kuznetsky Most, we will take into account for the future (((
2) despite the information received from the Internet that local customs officers meticulously study the documents of girls arriving from Russia on the Lebanese border, they have seen from their own experience that this is incorrect information. The local smiling officer, despite the local time at 1 am, glanced at the completed immigration cards, which indicate the names of the hotels booked on the Internet, and issued a free visa. The only thing they pay attention to is the absence of an Israeli visa or any other marks of the state of Israel. With this, indeed, strictly;
3) fortunately for us, while Lebanon is not a country of mass tourism, so we have avoided all the delights of organized tourism and mass gatherings of curious people; as we understand, the main stream (or rather, a trickle) of tourists consists of three categories:
a. in Beirut itself - rare lovers of sights and historical places (such as Byblos, the oldest inhabited city on Earth, protected and included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, or the colorful ruins of Baalbek or Anjar, once again confirming the greatness of the once great Roman Empire);
b. mega-rich sheikhs or people who pretend to be them, who come to Beirut to the only casino in the Middle East (by the way, there are an order of magnitude more casinos in Monaco, where, apparently, these people are barred from traveling due to Schengen visa denials or simply because hourly accessibility of the “Casino of Lebanon” from any of the prosperous capitals of the Persian Gulf countries), add to this the widespread knowledge of the familiar Arabic language in Beirut and it will become clear why there is a constant traffic jam of luxury cars at the entrance to the casino;
c. extreme lovers of new slopes (like us), employees of numerous diplomatic missions in Lebanon (and in other countries of the Persian Gulf) and curious Arabs from nearby countries, who happily take their numerous families (with an indispensable Filipina nanny, resignedly dragging sleds uphill) to real (! ) and not fake snow.
4) we decided to build our trip in two parts - the first (historical) - in Beirut, the second - skiing. For just $25, a taxi driver took us to the Mayflower 4 * hotel in the center of Beirut in the historic Hamra district (the only thing that overshadowed our 20-minute journey was a certain European-looking and strangely silent fellow traveler whom an enterprising taxi driver put in a taxi with us right in airport without notifying us). In one of the guidebooks we read that it is necessary to warn taxi drivers in advance about the desire to travel without additional passengers. The hotel was booked online and cost $300 for a decent double room with breakfast for all 4 days for two.
The next morning we went on foot to explore Beirut - it's more interesting (although any trip within the city costs about 10.000 local liras, or a little more than 7 dollars, 1 dollar = 1.500 liras). By the way, dollars in Lebanon are accepted everywhere, in most restaurants and bars the bill is issued in lira and the cost is automatically printed in dollars, change is given both in lira and in dollars.
Several decades of the presence of the French after the First World War gave its excellent shoots - similar to Paris (however, like any European city) bourgeois downtown with numerous street cafes serving excellent coffee and the freshest croissants, a living tradition of choosing wine for dinner for half an hour , the impeccable French of most of the attendants (in schools, by the way, all natural subjects - mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. are taught in French)....
The city (especially its central part) gives the impression of being very prosperous - at every step there are bank branches (it is not for nothing that Beirut has the status of Middle Eastern Switzerland), countless jewelry stores and jewelry advertisements, local well-groomed ladies in exquisite outfits with bags of the most famous companies, cars of the latest brands, modern quarters with apartments and balconies entwined with greenery and bright flowers, very clean and well-groomed streets and squares….
Of course, there is another, Muslim Beirut, but... there are such quarters in any metropolis of the world. The country's population is just over 3.6 million people, of which about a third live in the capital. The real problem is the rapid increase in the Muslim population (it increases by 0.5 million every ten years). By the way, in the Muslim quarter there is a street with the strange name Basta, where an antique market is located, where exquisite Murano glass chandeliers, inlaid furniture from Florence (apparently left over from the time of the French mandate), countless vases, candlesticks, etc. are sold for mere pennies. . cute things to create home comfort. Unfortunately, local merchants were not ready to send these rarities to Russia.
The next day, we took a taxi from the hotel with a colorful grandfather driver, who took us to Harissa for $ 60 (this is a beautiful place on the coast, where, having climbed the funicular), you can admire the beautiful view of Beirut and the Mediterranean Sea. The same amount included a visit to the Jeita cave with the most beautiful stalactites and stalagmites (you bought the ticket yourself, cameras and mobile phones must be left in the luggage room) and an unforgettable excursion on a small boat inside the cave, as well as a visit to the most ancient inhabited city on Earth - Byblos.
They didn’t take the car themselves, since rent costs $ 40-50 a day, depending on the brand, we add the cost of gasoline (although cheap by our standards - 6 rubles per liter), navigation and signs (at least in Beirut itself) leave wish for the best. The manner of driving by local drivers also raised big questions (although after Moscow, it seems, nothing is scary anymore) - basically no one turns on the turn signals, everything is decided by signals. How drivers distinguish in the general noise, to whom what signal is intended, no one knows.
In terms of the fleet - in addition to luxurious modern cars of the latest models (the predominance of large black SUVs... - familiar, isn't it), the rest of the cars are almost rare in Moscow models of Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo and other European brands 70-90 years. release, often beaten. In rural areas, as we understand, part of the population lives by repairing this kind of car - on the first floor of the house there is a garage-workshop with front bumpers and headlights from all cars (apparently, the most popular parts) on the second - residential apartments.
Byblos, in fact, like Baalbek, must be seen. Perhaps Baalbek is the most colorful ruin in the world. I especially liked the fact that there were no organized groups with ever-mumbling guides in either city, and in Anzhar we were the only tourists that day. On the third day of our stay in Beirut, we combined a visit to Baalbek and Anjar (located in the Bekaa Valley, our Hezbollah driver took as much as $ 100 for 8 hours of work) with a visit to one of the most famous wineries in the country - Ksara. Free tasting, a tour of the underground labyrinth with a cellar where collectible wines are stored, and traditional shopping for excellent rosé wines (and not only) only added color to this wonderful sightseeing day.
In the evening we visited the local shopping center with the simple name "ABC" - the local temple of consumption, where we saw, in fact, all the familiar luxury brands, as well as youth brands. The prices are Moscow, there are a lot of people, the only difference is that the security at the entrance checks all the incoming people and their bags (security measures affect).
Having had enough of exploring the antiquities, on the fourth day we moved to the city of Mzaar (60 dollars, 1.5 hours of serpentine driving to the mountains), to the 5 * chalet-styled Mzaar Intercontinental Hotel & SPA. Everyone booked through the website www. skileb. com (including the rental of skis, ski passes and ski insurance, the only thing is that the ski pass is valid from another lift, and not from the one that starts directly from the hotel - however, we are daily meekly drove a silent friend in a jeep, you need to get a ski pass in a special window with the inscription SLILEB for every day). The cost of the hotel is just over 100 dollars per person per day, including a rich European breakfast and an equally rich lunch (or dinner) in one of the many restaurants. Children can easily spend time in the arcade or in the lobby for delicious ice cream.
There are, of course, cheap hotels and hostels there, but I can’t say anything definite about them.
Now about skiing - 80 km of well-groomed slopes (mostly red and blue), a well-organized system of lifts without (! ) queues, cute cafes where you can enjoy a beautiful view of the Lebanese mountains. Expanse here and for lovers of off-piste skiing. There are not just few people on the mountain, but very few, and, which pleased me personally, there are practically no dashing teenager snowboarders, who often poison the rest on the European slopes. Arabs in earflaps, under the watchful eye of their numerous wives in black outfits and the instructor's approving exclamations, take their first steps on mountain skis - a colorful, but tiring sight.
From a height of 2465 m, an extraordinary view of the blue Mediterranean Sea and snow-capped peaks opens up.
Add to this a completely empty pool (also with a view of the blue sky and snow-white mountains) - enslaved women of the East do not go to the pool, not even to the spa. We still remember SPA procedures with special love, including because of reasonable prices (although after Moscow everything is available everywhere, even in bourgeois old Europe).
5) Russians (not counting the airport) were met twice - in Byblos (a married couple with a child) and in Beirut at the exit of a Chinese restaurant in the most vicious area on Monot Street.
6) About security - separately. Many friends, having heard that we were going to Lebanon for a week, and even in the conditions of the aggravation of relations between Israel and Hamas, etc. , immediately dissuaded us from the trip, frightening us with all sorts of inevitable problems. We decided: "Whoever is destined to be hanged will not drown" - In other words, inshallah! In reality, they observed increased security measures (soldiers with weapons in booths), in addition to the airport, at the entrance to prestigious quarters, at the entrance to the same five-star hotel in Mzaar, at large shopping centers, when passing through major bridges and entering key cities , which, in my opinion, is quite understandable in the conditions of such a militant southern neighbor and no less militant Hezbollah group (by the way, one of its camps was located near the ancient Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley). However, these measures did not concern ordinary tourists. We even observed a demonstration of Hezbollah activists near the UNESCO (or UNICEF) building in Beirut - nothing special, flags, posters, etc. - demonstration, as a demonstration. I dare to draw analogies with the anti-American demonstrations in Moscow near the American embassy, which all Muscovites learn about only from the news. In other words, we did not find anything terrible and dangerous for tourists in Lebanon. Lebanon is an unforgettable and original and, most importantly, very friendly country, which is quite possible to go to for new experiences and good skiing.