Downtown Beirut

We visited downtown Beirut on Friday, where a lot of heavy fighting happened. The restoration is not complete yet. This is what I expected the city to look like, with huge marble facades and striking places of worship. The churches and mosques are either stunningly beautiful or palpably aged, or both. I love my zoom!!! I also love being able to take as many shots as I need to with my digital camera.


We also saw Martyrs' Square/Freedom Square, and the memorial for Rafik Hariri. The actual coffins are in the memorial, above ground. The saddest part was the coffins of the six bodyguards who were killed along with him. The name of each was posted along with the name of his mother.

There are Phoenician and Roman ruins (baths and a law school) in a few places downtown, and we looked at them, too.

We stopped inside St. George's Orthodox Cathedral, where restorations of the wall paintings are still going on. I'm going to go back later to take pictures, because I wasn't sure how to turn my flash off.

The overall impression downtown is one of emptiness, because the streets are not alive like they are in Hamra- no coffee shops or pharmacies or grocers or feeling of daily life. It's almost like a set- the place where people will go shopping, or will go to work, once it's all put together again. Not that none of the shops or offices are open; but they are mostly glistening, new and slightly sterile, at least to the tourist's eye. Someone tells me people go downtown at night, not during the day. It has been hot and humid every day, and standing in the sun was not a good idea. The buildings seemed to reflect a lot of heat.