Raphael Kessler

Lebanon is a country that has suffered badly from the medias portrayal of a den of terrorism and war. Although this was true for some years, it is no longer the case. Admittedly the Bekaa valley is still a stronghold for Hizbollah but Beirut is a nice quiet modern town where the locals think themselves Mediterranean as much as Middle-Eastern.

Lebanon is a place where one can ski and then go for a swim in the Mediterranean, or go and look at the impressive Roman ruins. In Baalbek are some very impressive remains of temples. The temple of Jupiter was absolutely massive, with thirty-two metre high columns supporting the roof (photo 1). Next to the temple of Jupiter is the temple of Bacchus (photo 2), also known as the small temple. To call this thing small though is like calling the pope a little bit religious, the size of the thing can be seen in the photo below, with people walking just near the bottom corner to use for scale. Just across the way from these temples is the temple of Venus, in a poor state of disrepair (photo 3). The impressive thing here was the remains of an arch on top of a column that defies the basic rules of physics.