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In late February, there was snow on the road into the Chouf mountains south-east of Beirut.
In the bottom of this valley, the Nabe Essiafia river and in the distance, the Ain Zhalia village where my friend Fu'ad was born.
Here are Fu'ad Kamil, his daughter Maha and wife Jimena at the ancestral home of the Mogab family in Ain Zhalia.
The Mogabs are Greek Catholics. Greek Catholics split from the Greek Orthodox Church in the 18th century. They fully accept Catholic doctrines as defined by the Vatican but have remained close to the Greek Orthodox Church. They use Arabic and follow the Byzantine rite. In Lebanon, when one speaks of Catholics, one is referring to this group and not to Roman Catholics nor to the Maronites. They represent about 3 percent of the population.
In the distance, a stand of the famous Lebanese cedars that have provided large beams for most of the temples and palaces of the eastern Mediterranean region in ancient times. Only a few groves of really big cedars are left but, thankfully, they are now well protected.
Last light after sunset in the Chouf mountains.
The following day we went south to Saida and Tyr. Saida is a very old settlement going back at least 6000 years. Once the wealthy Phoenician city of Sidon, it was invaded by the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs who called it Saida, the Crusaders and the Mamluks.
Here we are approaching, from the north, Saida's medieval Sea Castle built by the Crusaders in the 13th century.
Here is a view of what is left of the Sea Castle from the south
Below left, inside the castle and on the right, Fu'ad, Maha, Jimena and I. Note how the Crusaders used sections of granite columns taken from earlier buildings (probably Roman temples),to strengthen their sandstone fortifications.
Ancient Tyr dates back to about 2700 BC. It was the largest of Phoenician cities when its king Hiram sent architects, skilled artisans and cedar lumber to help king Solomon erect the first Hebrew temple in Jerusalem around 960 BC.(built on the Phoenician model).
Tyr suffered the same fate as all other cities in that crossroad of history being successively overrun by a great variety of imperialists; Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks and Ottomans before falling into the hands of the French.
Since the independence of Lebanon, the predominantly Shiite population has been invaded by Israel in 1978 and in 1982 and has been subjected to occupation by the Christian South Lebanese Army created and supported by US backed Israel. It is not surprising that Hisbollah members tend to be more readily trusted than westerners around here.
A traditional Shiite mollah and a modern mercedes crossing in a street of Tyr symbolise the uneasy truce that will remain only a truce as long as Palestinians are relegated to discontinuous "bantustans" inside their own territory to serve as cheap labour and captive market for their Israeli masters,
I was really happy to have seen this Roman avenue paved with marble blocks and lined with colonnades in the Al Mina archaeological site on the seaside.
Tyr was however too close to Israel for my comfort and I was glad to move out along this avenue towards Beirut.
