2019 was the year of girls’ trips. It was our friend’s 40th birthday and we had to celebrate her properly! So the five of us booked tickets to Lebanon to eat, explore, and ring in our friend’s new decade.
People
The literal translation of colleagues in Turkish is “work friends” and these are work friends who have become family. We are all teachers and we all LOVE travel. After we got off work on Friday, we met at the airport and went straight to the Starbucks. Armed with coffees in one hand and miniature duty-free champagne bottles in the other, we set the tone for our weekend in Beirut. That first night we went to a bomb-shelter-turned-nightclub. Beirut does cool like no where else.
Do
We spent our Saturday visiting sights within a short drive from Beirut. Here we are atop Our Lady of Lebanon looking down on the city of Jounieh. We also visited Jeita Grotto, the cave in the photo below, and had a quick jaunt up to Byblos to finish off the day. Definitely don’t miss Jeita Grotto, the longest cave complex in the Middle East, as it left us absolutely spellbound.
Celebrate
We were treated so well while celebrating J’s birthday at Liza Beirut. The restaurant was gorgeous and we ate so, so well.
Taste
This is just the dessert spread from our lunch on Sunday. Can you imagine what the main course looked like? The flavors of smoked eggplant and tahini, of zaater on fresh-baked pita still live on in my memory.
The Wayfaring Wren 