Lebanon rises from its ashes
MICHAEL THEODOULOU
IT WAS the prized tourist destination that was torn apart by militiamen, kidnappers and car-bombers.
But 14 years after the fighting ended, Lebanon has re- established itself as a vibrant holiday playground.
Tourist arrivals topped the million mark last year, just short of pre-war records.
And this year, for the first time since the 1975-1990 civil war, the number of European tourists in April and May exceeded those from Arab countries. The figures provide all the confirmation delighted tourism officials need that Lebanon has regained its reputation as the Switzerland of the Middle East, where European chic meets Middle Eastern money.
"Before the war, we always had more European than Arab tourists, except in the summer months when many Gulfis come," said Ali Hussein Abdullah, Lebanon’s tourism minister.
"Everything went up this year - those from Africa, from America, but it was the Europeans that was most remarkable."
The increase is all the more remarkable because Lebanon was for so long synonymous in European minds with the suffering and violence of the 15-year civil war which shuddered to a halt in 1990.
During that time the country had also served as a proxy battleground between its more powerful neighbours, Syria, Israel and Iraq.
Gulf Arabs have been flocking to Lebanon for years, particularly in the summer months when the cool mountain resorts are a welcome respite from the scorching heat of home.
They have been more aware than many Europeans of Lebanon’s phoenix-like resurrection as a welcoming destination. Saudis, in particular, have provided lucrative business since the 11 September attacks.
The United States used to be a favoured holiday destination for them, but many are now fearful of a frosty reception there.
A record number of 200,000 Saudis are due to visit Lebanon this summer, filling the luxurious hotels in mountain resorts where a week’s stay at the plushest can cost $5,000 (£2,700) and much more for "royalty suites".
In resorts such as Broummana, huge US-made SUVs with tinted windows and Gulf number plates clog the streets.
But fashionable Europeans, eager for something more exotic than a sun, sea and sand package tour, are also flocking back to a country whose glitz and glamour was once a magnet for their parents’ generation.
"Rediscover Lebanon" urges a website which is promoting the country along with an expensive advertising campaign that promises beaches, ski slopes, archaeological treasures and vibrant nightlife.
The strong euro also makes Lebanon good value for money for Europeans.
In Britain, Lebanon has also been boosted by the positive publicity surrounding the return of some of its more famous British visitors in recent years: the former hostages Terry Waite and John McCarthy, who were keen to see the country in peacetime.
Lebanon is the Middle East’s most liberal country, an oasis of tolerance and easy-going enjoyment in a turbulent region.
Europeans can experience the spiciness of the Middle East without what they may regard as its drawbacks.
There is no ban on alcohol, unlike in Iran and Saudi Arabia which are also attempting to attract the more discerning Western visitor. Nor is there any Islamic dress code.  | |
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| It’s the food, wine, heat, hospitality, and more than anything, the sites |
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On Hamra street, Beirut’s equivalent of Oxford Street, micro-skirted young Lebanese women brush shoulders with Gulf women cowled head to foot in black hijab dress.
After a day visiting Roman or Phoenician ruins, European tourists can spend the evenings at fashionable nightclubs alongside the country’s more privileged youth, many of whom speak French, a legacy of France’s colonial rule.
Lebanon’s climate is also much more pleasant than that of many Middle Eastern countries, and the landscape is greener.
Elizabeth Balthay, a French lawyer working in London, came to Lebanon for a holiday, inspired by her father’s tales of the Baalbek, Byblos and Beirut he visited often before the war.
"Most people are under the impression that Beirut is extremely dangerous, filled with Israeli tanks, and that the streets are speckled black by masked Hezbollah gunmen looking for Westerners to take hostage," she said.
"I wanted to see the sites of Byblos spanning from the Neolithic through to the crusader fortress, Baalbek, which was meant to be bigger than the Parthenon, and Tyre, which has a hippodrome you could actually feel.
"What is good about Lebanon? The food, the quaffable wine, the heat, warm hospitality, and more than anything, the sites."
When Lebanon first tried to resurrect its tourism industry a decade ago, there were sceptical smiles.
After all, the heart of Beirut had been the main urban battleground and was still a devastated landscape of bombed-out buildings. Their once grand facades were corroded by years of gun and rocket fire. Giant weeds frothed from the rubble.
But it was, as the brochures put it, the city that would not die.
Early post-war tourists were ghoulishly attracted to the civil war’s most famous sites.
They would cruise along Sniper Alley, which ran along the former green line that divided the Christian east and Muslim west of the capital.
Then, with much hype in 1994, the Lebanese prime minister and self-made billionaire, Rafik Hariri, launched a hugely ambitious plan to re-unite and regenerate the city centre.
Bulldozers and wrecking balls swung into action, rubbing out the scars of war as they cleared huge stretches of land, turning the city centre into a vast reconstruction site.
The doubters ate humble pie as a vibrant new city centre then emerged, a pedestrianised oasis of fashionable open-air cafés, restaurants, shops and nightclubs.
One of the biggest symbolic milestones on the road back to pre-war normality came when the legendary Casino du Liban, the flashiest pleasure dome east of Las Vegas, re-opened its doors in 1996 after a multi-million-pound face-lift wiped away the war-inflicted damage.
It had been here that celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Charles Aznavour and Johnny Halliday entertained high-rolling Arab sheikhs and European jet-setters, among them film stars such as Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren.
The casino, which overlooks the magnificent bay of Jounieh 12 miles north of Beirut, had managed to function intermittently throughout most of the war.
Muslims and Christians who battled by day crossed the sectarian divide to gamble at night. Only in 1989, a year before the war ended, did the roulette wheels grind to a complete halt when militiamen shelled the marbled complex.
The second symbol of Lebanon’s revival came in 1997 with the revival after 23 years of the Baalbek International Festival, once the Middle East’s greatest annual cultural and artistic extravaganza.
Before the civil war, when Baalbek became a notorious Hezbollah stronghold, thousands of tourists had flocked to see the ancient city each summer.
They came to see the likes of Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Joan Baez and Herbert von Karajan’s Berlin Philharmonic perform beneath the floodlit splendour of its exquisite Roman temples.
Capitalising on its cultural diversity, varied landscape, and mixture of tradition and modernity, Lebanon is now hoping for a four-fold increase in tourism arrivals within five to six years. It is an ambitious target. But given what the country has so far achieved, the sceptics will be less vocal this time.
Lively, cultured and full of architectural wonders
MIKE THEODOULOU
AT JUST half the size of Wales, Lebanon is small enough to deliver on the tourist brochure promise of enabling holidaymakers to swim in the Mediterranean and ski on cedar covered mountains on the same day.
Beirut is the starting point for most visitors, an enchanting mix of the old and the new and a trilingual capital where many speak French and English as well as Arabic.
The city has some of the liveliest nightlife in the Middle East, offering a large choice of clubs, restaurants and bars.
By day the renovated heart of Beirut is a pleasant place to lounge in open-air cafés, indulging in the local craze for the Nargila, or hubble-bubble pipe, after visiting the city’s many mosques, churches and shops.
The Corniche, running along the coast to the north and redolent of Lebanon’s pre-war days, is another "must see" and a great place to people-watch, especially in the late afternoons when it is the favoured promenade spot for Beirutis.
Less than an hour’s drive north of Beirut is the picturesque Phoenician harbour town of Byblos, from which the English word, Bible, is derived. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world and the layers of its long history are clearly on display with medieval walls standing alongside Roman structures built over Bronze Age settlements.
Further north along the coast is Tripoli, famous for its Mameluke architecture from the 14th and 15th centuries and the 12th century basalt and limestone citadel built by the Frankish crusader, Raymond de St Gilles.
To the south of Beirut is the port city of Tyre, founded by the Phoenicians but most famous today for its Roman ruins, including a U-shaped hippodrome for chariot-racing which could hold 20,000.
Perhaps Lebanon’s greatest archaeological and architectural attractions are the monumental Roman ruins in Baalbek, a small town 50 miles north-east of Beirut which was a Hezbollah stronghold during the civil war. The temples to Jupiter and Bacchus are in remarkably good condition, with columns soaring 22 metres high. The town also hosts an annual international arts festival.
Lebanese cuisine is savoury rather than spicy, rich in herbs and not at all greasy. A meal usually starts with some hors d’oeuvres, such as humous, beans, cheese pies, aubergine dips and falafel. These are followed by a main dish of grilled chicken, lamb or fish with salads, accompanied by freshly baked, flat bread.
Many Lebanese drink the spirit arak with their meals, mixed with water and ice, while there are many good local wines.The country’s colonial past has also left it with many good French restaurants.
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