Lebanon Day 3
Mazen & Hibba's
Super chilled out morning with our normal breakfast at the hotel and then chilling out for a few hours. We headed up for an early lunch (2pm) at Mazen and Hibba's house, one of the couples we met for dinner the night before. They have an amazing house with a pool and olive trees that they harvest to produce olive oil. Hibba, the wife is one of five sisters and they are very close. When you meet each of them, they will tell you THEY are the best sister of the group. Three of the five sisters and their families joined us for lunch. We missed the big family party that happens on Sunday. We were offered more and more food from one sister to the next. We waddled out of there because Ismat, The Fixer, had a plan.
sayda
AFTER LUNCH IT WAS TIME TO HEAD DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO SAYDA AND VISITED THE FOLLOWING PLACES:
- Crusader Castle, an old Roman and Ottoman fort being consumed by the sea.
- Old Souk, a very old, still fully functional market.
- Inside of the market we saw any different sites:
- Debbane Palace
- Khan El Franj, or Inn of the Foreigners, an old inn built by the Ottoman Fakhr el-Dine II to encourage the silk traders to do business to Saida.
- An old Turkish bath that was converted to a school for music.
- Another Turkish bath that was being restored.
- Soap Museum (more interesting than it sounds) Of course it was closed, but not to Ismat, she had American tourists that came all the way from America to see this museum! Seriously! Ismat would be an amazing fixer. Check out her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ismatitani
Lemonade
Finally Ismat showed us some mercy and took us to a place for minted lemonade. Along the way David showed off his football and foosball skills.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/388679736
Dinner
We ended the with a nice dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in one of the hip neighborhoods of Beirut. We had a few beers and Arak, the local anise based liquor. We bought some Arak for some students we met from Denmark. They can over via train and ferry. I can't believe we complained about the length of our travels.