Temples of the Sun City and the culinary capital

It was time to visit Lebanon’s most celebrated site yesterday so after dropping my bags off in a hotel in Zahleh, Lebanon’s third city I continued on to Baalbek (a.k.a. Heliopolis), the “Sun City” of the ancient world. After Syria it was hard to imagine a country that could compete with its impressive history and monuments but Lebanon makes a very strong claim. The stunning site of Baalbek temples – which took about 120 years to build - is one of if not the most important Roman site in the whole Middle East and in its heyday far outshone anything even Rome could muster. It is considered by many to be one of the Worlds wonders and mystical powers are attributed to the stones of this temple. In short a visit to Lebanon is not complete until you have been to Baalbek.

The site lies in Hizbollah territory, a fact hard to miss given the preponderance of posters, logos and their famous yellow and green flags. However this is not a dangerous region and it is not here that they are militarily active; here it is more a question of regular politics – and there is no tension among the mixed Christian/Muslim population.

Baalbek dates back to the third millennium BC when the Phoenicians lived here and during its history housed sacred prostitutes and witnessed many bloody forms of worship. Here is a grisly quote from the ancient tablets of Ugarit in Syria about the sister and wife of Baal, the chief deity of Baalbek: “…waded up to the neck in human blood. Human heads lay at her feet, human hands flew over her like locusts. She tied the heads of her victims as ornaments on her back, their hands she tied upon her belt. When she was satisfied she washed her hands in streams of blood before turning to other things again”. Charming!

The ruins themselves are stunning and in such a good state that it’s not hard to imagine how the city must have looked in its heyday. Some of the largest stone structures in the world are used in the temples of Baalbek, some weighing over 1000 tonnes and how they were moved and positioned so accurately remains a mystery. The Jupiter temple and the temple of Bacchus are particularly impressive. Not far from the ruins is what must be the kitschest mosque in the world. Quite tasteful from the outside, inside everything sparkles and glitters and the effect is almost comic!

I returned to Zahleh and with a few people I had met shared some lovely mezze by the river in the restaurant area of this culinary capital of Lebanon and some delicious arak. Tomorrow I will visit Ksara winery, Lebanon’s most famous, for some wine tasting, and Aanjar, Lebanon’s only extensive Umayyad site.

- David