Rila Monastery is about 2 hours south of Sofia and is the largest and most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. It was founded in the 10th century and named after the hermit Ivan of Rila, also known as St John of Rila. St Ivan actually lived in a cave not far from the monastery. … Continue reading Rila Monastery July 2018
From Beirut, we continued our summer holiday to the capital and largest city of Bulgaria, Sofia. Sofia is one of the oldest cities in Europe and over the last 2,000 years have come under Thracian, Roman, Ottoman, and Russian rule lending to the mix of architecture with Ottoman mosques sitting next to Soviet-era buildings. Recent … Continue reading Sofia July 2018
About an hour north of Beirut is Byblos. Byblos is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, believed to have been first occupied between 8,800 and 7,000 BC. It was built as the first city in Phoenicia by Cronus. In the middle of the 3rd century BC, Byblos was already an important … Continue reading Byblos July 2018
En route to Byblos, we made a stop at Jeita Grotto, one of the longest cave systems in the Middle East, spanning almost 9km in length. It was one of the finalists for the New Seven Wonders of the Natural World. There are two separate but interconnected limestone caves filled with stalagmites and stalactites of … Continue reading Jeita Grotto July 2018
The ancient ruins I have visited in the past were normally of Greek and Roman origin. Rarely have I come across an Islamic one. Not far from Baalbek is the Umayyad city of Anjar founded by Caliph Walid bin Abd Al Malik in the 8th century. The Umayads were the first Muslim dynasty to pass … Continue reading Anjar July 2018
Baalbek is an ancient Phoenician city about 2 hours northeast of Beirut in the Beqaa Valley. It was a religious center attracting thousands of pilgrims who worshipped the Phoenician sky-god Ba’al and his consort Astarte, the Queen of Heaven. There was once a grand temple here dedicated to these two pagan gods which was later … Continue reading Baalbek July 2018
This year, my summer holiday starts in Beirut, Lebanon, which used to be regarded “The Paris of the Middle East”. Being one of the oldest cities in the world, I didn’t imagine it to be a metropolis complete with skyscrapers, new glass buildings, trendy restaurants etc. The Central District area was completely rebuilt due to … Continue reading Beirut July 2018
