Is Lebanon safe? A five-day visit showed a vibrant country still worth visiting

(This is the second of a three-part series on Lebanon.)

BEIRUT – In the heart of a country at war, there is Hamra.

Hamra is the neighborhood in Beirut where you drink fine wine in elegant enotecas, peruse paintings in modern art galleries, sip coffee in tony cafes, chug beer in rollicking dive bars, see plays in historic theaters.

Hamra is Beirut’s SoHo. It’s where I stay when I’m in town – even when bombs are occasionally falling just 15 minutes away, the economy has collapsed and a bomb that exploded on a port five years ago killed 218 people.

One of Hamra’s nicest bars is Ferdinand. It’s a cocktail lounge where elegant waiters serve high-end designer drinks and some of the best of Lebanon’s underrated wines. On a Tuesday night two weeks ago, I walked in and it was empty. I was the lone customer at the long L-shaped bar.

Has Israel’s recent bombing of the Dahiyeh neighborhood 15 minutes from here scared off Lebanon’s tourist market? Does the world think Israel’s war with Gaza and Hezbollah will spill into downtown Beirut?

Last year 1.1 million tourists visited Lebanon. That’s a 32 percent drop from 2023.  I came to Beirut to ask one question.

How safe is Lebanon to visit?

“I feel safe,” said the 30ish waiter who only gave his name as Joey. “I feel loved. I feel surrounded with people. I feel free. I feel fine. I can go wherever I want whenever I want. I can do what I want. The streets are safe. People are lovely and the vibe itself is amazing.”

I could not agree more. Beirut has been one of my favorite cities since 2019 when I came for my birthday. Lebanon’s civil war had ended and the Christians and Muslims had put down their weapons and grudges and joined forces against the corrupt government.

The bars were fun. The locals were friendly. The food was fantastic.

But that was before Israelìs recent attacks on Hezbollah, Lebanon’s shiite Muslim militant group with its stronghold in Dahiyeh. It’s before Israel bombed downtown Beirut twice last year.

How do people live here with that threat?

“By accident,” Joey said in excellent English. “I swear to God. We’re good at managing crises. We adapt fast. We adapt so fast. Any crisis, any shitty situation, so when I tell you by coincidence, we’re surviving.”

This year Israel has concentrated on bombing Lebanon’s southern frontier and Beirut’s southern suburbs. The rest of Beirut has been as safe as Brussels.

Joey is a Beirut native. He’s probably too young to remember much of the civil war from 1975-1990 but he knows what he likes about today’s Beirut.

“Everything, man,” he said. “I’m like a fish. If I go outside the water, I will die. To me, Beirut is like the sea.”

Is Lebanon safe?

Everyone I told I was visiting Lebanon and Damascus said I needed serious counseling. My health insurance company said it wouldn’t cover me. Marina asked if she should arrange a closed- or open-casket funeral. I laughed. I kept up with the news. I knew the Israelis had good aim. 

They weren’t going to bomb Ferdinand.

After five days in Lebanon, my assumption was correct. Lebanon is safe. Lebanon is wonderful. There is so much to see and do, from walking along the lovely Corniche on the Mediterranean to eating baguette sandwiches in tony French cafes in the ritzy Beirut Souqs. Go out of town and visit the biggest Roman temple complex in the world, do a wine tasting at a Lebanese winery (coming in a blog Friday) or explore one of the world’s largest cave networks.

Lebanon epitomizes the adventurous, off-the-beaten path destination that will fill your cocktail parties with stories forever.

A Hamra institution since 1964 is a hole-in-the-wall bar named Captain’s Cabin. It has a nautical theme with a ship’s wheel on a wall and foreign bills hanging everywhere. Owner Andre Toriz, a Beirut native with some Mexican roots, is a big, burly fellow who has kept his warm smile through a lifetime of war. 

Andre was just setting up when I walked in. 

Again, I was the only customer. Andre said I was the first American he’d seen in two months. As old rock tunes played on the loudspeaker, he served me a glass of Lebanese wine and talked to me about life in today’s Lebanon.

“It’s better,” he said. “We have a government right now. Before, there was no president, no government. They used to fight each other, even the prime minister and president. So they stopped forming the government. Until now. It was created in less than 15 days. It was a big difference.”

I had read that new prime minister Nawaf Salam, 72, a former diplomat and respected ex-president of the International Court of Justice, has given Lebanese long-awaited hope. Appointed last January, he is targeting reconstruction and ceasefires, a major challenge as Israel has treated ceasefires like supermarket fliers.

Talk to Lebanese about the war and you get little fear. They mostly shrug.

“Because I’ve been there: 1982, 1996, 2006,” Andre said. “They’re all the same. The difference now is (the Israelis) have better technology.”

You mean I’m right? They do have better aim?

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Starting in 1989 they were shooting blindly. They were bombing everywhere. I was living in West Beirut and every house was hit by Israel in 1982. They surrounded Beirut.”

And now with them targeting Hezbollah in the south?

“We’re OK,” he said. “We’re convinced that it’s starting all over again. Whatever happens happens.

“We’ve been dealing with this problem for six years: Covid, (economic) crash, (port) bomb, war, ‘23, ‘24. We’re still at war. But it’s not like declared. Whenever they please, they bomb us.”

Suddenly his lights went out. I’d experienced this a few times around Beirut. They returned a few seconds later, as always. In 1996, Israel bombed Beirut’s power station.

“We have six hours of electricity per day from the government,” Andre said. “People run generators nearly 18 hours a day. A person without money would have no electricity.”

The economy

I had come from Syria which was also in the middle of rebuilding its economy since the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad last December. Cash machines didn’t work. Credit cards were useless. The Syrian pound has been devalued to where exchanging $20 gave you a brick of Syrian cash you needed a drug dealer’s briefcase to carry.

In Beirut, ATMs did work. Many places took credit cards. But unlike in 2019, the preferred currency is U.S. dollars. The Lebanese pound has collapsed. When I visited two weeks ago, $1 equaled 90,000 pounds. In 2019, it equaled 1,500. In other words in 2019, 90,000 pounds got you $60. Now it gets you $1.

Inflation followed. Beirut is noticeably more expensive than in 2019. Two glasses of wine at Ferdinand was $20. That’s more expensive than Rome.

Currencies tend to collapse when an explosion causing $15 billion worth of damage happens in the middle of Covid. On Aug. 4, 2020, 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up on the Port of Beirut, killing 218, injuring 7,000 and displacing 300,000.

Andre was home when it happened. His glass doors, fortunately, were open. He suffered only some broken glass on his balcony. I went to the port and all the rubble had been cleaned up. The only signs of the bomb were the grain silos that remained were shredded but standing like burnt matchsticks tied together.

The explosion happened five years ago. There are signs that tourism is returning. Katy Terro is a Beirut native I knew in Rome from talking to expats being away from home during Covid. She is getting her Ph.D in food sciences in Ljubljana, Slovenia, but frequently visits her family in Beirut.

“Last summer, there were so many tourists,” she said. “Lots of Chinese, Japanese people, European people. Whoa, I don’t know what’s going on. I haven’t seen tourists in a while.

“I love going there. The atmosphere, the vibes, the people. I’m so alive when I go there. Even though it’s chaotic, it’s so nice. Europe is nice but it’s not as exciting.”

What to do

I agree. The to-do list in Beirut is long. I covered the city during my 2019 trip. This time I went further afield. During my stay, our Travelers’ Century Club, for travelers who’ve been to at least 100 countries and territories, held our Mediterranean Chapter’s biennial meeting here.

We hired a local guide, the enthusiastic Ellie Abou Jaoude, to drive us outside the city. As he told me, “Lebanon is my heart. What can I tell you? Hours and hours it’s not enough.”

Here are the highlights:

Church of our Lady of Lebanon

The Church of our Lady of Lebanon was built in 1904 next to a 95-foot (30-meter) stone pedestal base. The church is nothing special although it reminds you that 30 percent of Lebanon is Christian. However, if you climb the 102 steps to the top of the tower, the view of Beirut is one of the best in the Middle East.

I was surprised how massive the city of 2.4 million is. It sprawls on both sides to the horizon. Red tile roofs fight space with modest buildings, all lined up against the deep blue Mediterranean and its ports.

Below us was an emerald green forest cascading toward the city.  I kept thinking, This is a city at war?

Baalbek

I’ve lived in Rome for 11 years and am always inspired when I walk by the Roman Forum, the center of Ancient Rome for 1,000 years. Little did I know that a complex 45 miles (85 meters) east of Beirut near the Syrian border would blow away the Forum in sheer magnitude and restoration.

Established around the 1st century A.D., Baalbeck is the largest Roman temple complex in the world. The Roman Empire stretched to Lebanon, then called Phoenicia, in the 1st century B.C. In a sprawling landscape 165 meters long and 95 wide, sit three huge temples.

Venus, Bacchus and Jupiter stand out like skyscrapers in a prairie. Huge Roman columns stand above long, tall, wide staircases. Big wide platforms remain where they held animal sacrifices.

The Bacchus temple features 40 columns and more than 30 remain. Parts of one wall is on the ground featuring the images of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, who were lovers during the Roman control of Egypt.

Anjar

Forty-five miles south of Baalbeck, Anjar is an Armenian community which dates back to the 8th century and home to the ancient Umayyad settlement. The Umayyad was the second Islamic caliphate after the death of the prophet Muhammad.

One of Lebanon’s six UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Anjar is a sprawling complex with remains of some of the 350 shops that dotted the grounds. It features arches, wide boulevards, water tanks, hammams and the city’s business office.

People had to pay tax to enter and many paraded in to trade camels and other goods.

After being abandoned for years, it was resettled by Armenians in 1939 and during the civil war, the Syrian army used it as one of its main military bases.

Jeita Grotto

One of the world’s most spectacular cave systems is 18 kilometers (10 miles) north of Beirut. Jeita Grotto was discovered in 1836 and opened to the public in 1944. The caves are said to be 6 million years old and cover 10 kilometers (six miles) on two levels.

We walked in and it was lit like a haunted house. Lights from walls below and above illuminate huge, menacing stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites shooting up from the floor. Some of them were 30 feet in length.

Claustrophobes need not worry. The roof is about 50 feet high. There was even a platform where they occasionally hold classical music concerts.

On the lower level, we took a small boat slowly deeper into the cave. The stalactites and stalagmites glistened like frosting in the light.

Cedar Forest

Our bus climbed to 2,200 meters past Lebanon’s ski slopes way above the treeline. Here we saw snow littering the ground of a huge swath of cedar forest. Ever see the tree on Lebanon’s flag? Those trees, some of which are 2,000 years old, cover 25 acres (10 hectares). It was like walking through the world’s biggest Christmas tree market.

Comfortable walking paths meander around trees on which some artists have carved sculptures, including one eerily looking like Jesus writhing on the cross. In December, the temperature dropped into the mid-30s. However, I kept thinking how comfortable it would be during Lebanon’s sweltering summers.

 

If you’re thinking of going …

How to get there: Paris flies direct to Beirut. I paid €332 round-trip ticket for the seven-hour trip from Rome including a three-hour layover in Istanbul.

How to get around: Public transportation outside of Beirut is spotty. It’s best to rent a car. Rentals in Beirut start at €38 a day.

Where to stay: El Sheikh Suites Hotel, Sidani Street, Hamra, Beirut, 961-1-756-756, www.elsheiksuitehotel.com, info@elsheikhsuiteshotel.com. In the heart of Hamra and not far from the Cornish, the El Sheikh has large comfortable rooms and a helpful English-speaking staff. I paid €52 a night.

Where to eat: Liza, Rue Trabeau, https://lizabeirut.com, iinfo@lizabeirut.com, 961-71-717-105, noon-midnight. Built in a 19th century Ottoman House, Liza was called by Conde Nast “one of the most beautiful restaurants in the world.” Classic Lebanese cuisine in an elegant setting. Order dishes and share. Appetizers start at $8, mains at $16.

When to go: Summer days average highs around 90 and spring in the high 70s. In my week in December it was in the 50s and low 60s.

For more information: Ministry of Tourism, 961-1-340-940, https://mot.gov.lb/en, 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday.

(Coming Friday: Lebanon’s most famous winery.)