byblos port

byblos beach

I had quite a nice weekend. Poor Ethan had to work a lot, but hopefully that will slow down very soon.

Today Carrie and I went to Byblos (Jbeil in Arabic) and had lunch and went to the beach. We had lunch in a fish restaurant in the charming port area. We were served a bunch of intact fried perch, a bunch of even smaller fish, and a fried goldfish, which I actually tried. I’m not a big fan of fish in general, so I ended up eating more hommos and salad, and spent less time dealing with heads, bones, and scales.

Byblos has been inhabited since the 6th century B.C. and some claim it is where the alphabet was invented, during Phoenician times. Today, the main attractions are the old city and port and also some ruins which can’t really rival some of those found in other parts of Lebanon. The souk is more like a string of tourist shops selling tacky knick knacks but also some really cool fossilized fish.

The first beach we tried to go to, just south of the port, doesn’t exist any longer, it has been taken over and is now a private beach resort, which was not what we were looking for. We ended up on a pebble beach just north of Byblos. We met a nice Irish couple on vacation from Abu Dhabi. The water seemed cleaner and was more blue than in Beirut.

It was really nice to swim, but the undertow was so strong that I was too nervous to go out very far. After a few hours in the sun, we walked back out to the highway and hopped on a minibus, which took us on the 45 minute trip back to Beirut for the equivalent of 65 cents each. Then I had to haggle to get the same fare across town from the “station” to our neighborhood.