Spring Break: Cedars and Tripoli

The next day (Friday, I think) we would head to the mountains to see the Cedars! I forgot to mention that Jessica's family had one of their employees drive us to these sights. That was also extremely nice of the family and of the employee. We were able to see so much more of the country than we would have otherwise.

We stopped at this random castle on the way there:

I don't know what this is- it was in some town we drove through:

I loved the mountains in Lebanon!

You could be at a beach in Beirut and then drive...

...an hour or two into the mountains and...

...be in snow!

The towns in the mountains were very interesting. This is a cliff-side cemetary:

I have no idea what the significance of this is:

That's a lot of snow!

Cedars!

While we were driving around, trying to find the entrance to the Cedar park, we passed a few groups of people that looked like they were going skiing or sledding. It's amazing- you can be on the beach and then drive an hour or two and go skiing.

We found the entrance, but it appeared to be closed. The gate was locked and no one was around. What to do, what to do..

..climb the fence!

I am pretty sure there are a number of cedar reserves in Lebanon- I do not know which one we were in..

It should be noted that we were not dressed for the snow. (Jessica's picture):
..so cold, so snowy (Jessica's picture, again)
There was quite a bit of snow covering the paths.. I don't even know if we were on the path here:

Jess took a shortcut down a hill:

Oh yes, it's that time again:
Fun with ArcSoft Panorama Maker!

..like you didn't know it was coming

After we saw the cedars, we went below the snow-line and to the Khalil Gibran museum.

..I think this statue/sculpture makes Gibran look like Vladimir Lenin
just for comparison:

At Gibran's request, he was buried under this monastery (which is now the museum) that is on the side of a mountain in his hometown, Bsharri. It is a very cool building, rock randomly comes out of the walls inside. Unfortunately, no photos allowed.
The beautiful view from the museum
Upon looking up the spelling of Bsharri, I found out that this town was seen as a "bastion" of Christian resistance against Syrians during the Lebanese Civil War and that "Bsharri natives are often referred to as the defenders of the maronites in northern Lebanon". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bsharri

After the museum, we drove to Tripoli, but not without stopping for some food. We went to a random little place in mountains that served only what I think was Manakish. It is similar to pizza in that it is dough with a spread-topping. I had kashk on mine- at the time I had no idea what it was, but now that I can look up what it is, kashk is a dried mixture of yogurt and cracked wheat. I like it.

Tripoli!

The only thing we did in Tripoli was go to a Crusader Castle. It was the biggest castle we went to while in Lebanon.

I don't know what Jessica is doing here, but I like how you can see colorful-Tripoli through the window:

It's election time:

There was this spiral staircase that just kept going and going. At a certain point there was no light and I tried using my camera to light it up:

I only went so far in the darkness, but then it got way too creepy and I went back up

We were going to go to a market in Tripoli, but it was prayer-time and everything was closing. So we went back to Beirut.

We stopped at this:

I do not know the significance, but it is on top of a mountain near Beirut and there is a huge church next to it. I suspect it is some Maronite-related thing (I think that is what Jessica's blog said, at least)

The view from the top:

That evening we stayed in and relaxed.