I wanted to go to Baalbek, in northern Lebanon. Some of the most impressive Roman ruins anywhere are situated there. The modern town is interesting too, a stronghold of the Shia Hezbollah party and militia. But there was a lot of discouragement. The UK Foreign Office website recommended against going there, except on essential business. Baalbek is close to the Syrian frontier, and there had been fears that the civil war there might spread across the border. The annual Baalbek cultural festival had been moved elsewhere in 2013, due to the perceived security threat, although it had subsequently returned. I had hoped to travel directly from Tripoli, over the mountains. That proved impossible, as snowfall had blocked the mountain road. So instead I travelled south, along the coast, to Beirut, and then took a minivan up to Baalbek. The road from Beirut rises steeply up over Mount Lebanon, and then follows the Bekaa Valley, actually a high plateau to the east of the Mount Lebanon range. The region had been under Syrian occupation until 2005. Now Baalbek enjoys an uneasy peace while next-door Syria burns.
I arrived in Baalbek in the middle of a warm, sunny March day. Snow still capped the mountains to the west of the town. I quickly made for the Roman remains, which are indeed magnificent. The scale is astounding. The site of the Temple of Jupiter is vast, and must have awed visitors in its day. The smaller, but still immense Temple of Bacchus is much better preserved, and impresses also due to the exquisite detail of its craftmanship. I found it baffling that the Romans chose to build on such a vast scale, bigger by far than anything in Rome, and with such quality, in this of all places? What was it about this region that they felt the need to impress so?
Baalbek also boasts fine buildings of more recent provenance, including tall, square Ottoman-era buildings with high arched windows and balconies. But the greatest gem is the Palmyra Hotel. Built in the 1870s by a Greek merchant from Istanbul, The Palmyra has in its day hosted kings, presidents, writers, artists and musicians. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visited in 1898, when he planned an excavation of the archaeological site. Other heads of state who visited included Ataturk, King Faisal of Iraq, King Abdullah I of Jordan and Charles de Gaulle. One of the staff showed me the room where de Gaulle stayed.
Today the hotel is a shadow of what it once was. The rooms are plain, the bathrooms shabby. It is no luxury hotel. But having been left largely alone, not renovated for decades, it preserves the atmosphere, the elegance of another era. In the chilly evenings (the temperature drops significantly in Baalbek in March, given its altitude), I sat in the upstairs vestibule, outside de Gaulle’s room, surrounded by period furniture, enjoying the warmth of the oil fire that an elderly staff member lit for me. Most of the rooms were unoccupied, and few staff remain. I was mostly looked after by two elderly gentlemen who had probably been there for decades. I had initially thought they were one man, for they looked like they might have been brothers. I spoke with one of them in French, and only realised they were two different men when the other, who spoke to me in English, informed me that he could not speak French. Probably the time will come when someone will renovate the place, and turn it into the luxury hotel it could be and which probably its pedigree merits. For myself, I was very happy to have stayed there in its current, slightly shabby but enormously atmospheric state. I don’t think I have ever stayed in a more special hotel.
Baalbek is a predominantly Shia town, although there are also Sunni and Christian minorities. It had been afflicted by war. During the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Baalbek, as a Hezbollah stronghold, was bombed by the Israelis, destroying much important infrastructure. Israeli troops carried out a raid on the town, apparently in the belief that two captured Israeli soldiers were being held there.
With an election approaching, the town was filled with party political banners and flags. Hezbollah, the Party of God, is said to be dominant here, but I also saw many flags of Amal, a rival Shia outfit. Amal also formed one of the civil-war militias, but it is now in alliance with Hezbollah. Outside the entrance to the archaeological site, souvenir stalls offered Hezbollah T-shirts, featuring the Hezbollah flag, with a figure holding a rifle in the air. I chatted with a young Hezbollah-supporting shopkeeper. Times were hard, he said. Because of the conflict in Syria, few tourists were coming to Baalbek. He had been anxious about the close proximity of IS terrorists just a few kilometres away. But thankfully there had been no attacks in Baalbek.
Among the mosques in Baalbek is a relatively new Shia one, very much in the style of Hezbollah’s Iranian patron, with a wide entrance arch, and covered with blue and green tiles and Arabic calligraphy. The worrisome security situation is indicated by the metal fence surrounding the mosque, and the iron-girder tank traps. It was the only sign I saw in Baalbek that all was not quite normal. Otherwise, the atmosphere appeared reasonably relaxed. On a warm Sunday afternoon, at a park on the edge of town, people sat outside cafes and smoked hookahs, while children ate candyfloss and took rides in the toy motor cars.
That Sunday morning there was a political rally in the town, for Hezbollah and its allies. Chairs were set up before the Temple of Bacchus, surely the most dramatic backdrop for a rally I had ever seen. It was a polite affair, as people sat quietly and listened to the speeches. Particularly striking was that men and women were all jumbled up, not segregated, and that not all the women present were wearing hijab. I chatted with a couple of men who happily pointed out which parties the different banners belonged to. It all seemed very normal, apart from the backdrop, much like political rallies I have attended in many countries in Europe. The atmosphere was in stark contrast to the march I had seen in Tripoli, with its strict segregation of the sexes, the women all with billowing abayas, their faces covered.
I enjoyed my short stay in Baalbek. Everywhere I went, I was treated kindly, from the delightful staff at the Palmyra Hotel, to the pastry shopkeepers who would not accept payment for their delicious sweet cakes (I think it was normal to buy them by the dozen rather than singly). As in Beirut, I was struck by the resilience of people who have come through repeated wars, and yet carry on, surviving, and even smiling.
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