From Bcharre we caught a micro bus and travelled through to Beirut. The drive down from the mountains was amazing, as snow fell deep into the valley. The road was icy and the views were in large part breath taking as we wended our way around to the south side of the QidishaValley and became interesting as we made our way from the mountains to the Mediterranean once again.

Arriving in Beirut it was the 31 December, so a BIG night ahead! We checked into our hotel and flopped for a spell. Anni remains unwell and with the bus journey etc, was in need of rest. We ventured out later in the evening and started to explore a small part of Beirut that had been recommended to us. Of course, Beiruti's are similar to most med based countries, they dine late and nothing happens much before 10.00pm. We found ourselves a good restaurant and Anni seemed to recover something of her appetite, having not eaten now for 24 hours. New years and old years night, we were both tired and Anni also needed rest, so b***** New year...we were in bed by 11.00pm.

Unfortunately Anni was not able to rise the next day and remains unwell. What started out as a sore throat 8 days ago, has really got a grip of Anni (and Anni is very rarely ill), sapping her energy with all the signs of influenza. So this was a rest day. I pottered off to the Corniche to suck in some sea air and watch the Beiruti's do what seems to be a favourite past time in times of peace - promenading. Of course I stopped off at a cafe and puffed away on narghila/shisha, quite contentedly for an hour or two.

The view of where I was while having my shisha, is in the photo with this blog - not unpleasant with the cityscape, backed by the snow of the mountains and the blue of sky and sea. That said it was just 1 degree Celsius throughout the day.I have been to Beirut previously - back in 2002. Would I come here a 3rd time? Yes, most definitely. Not just Beirut, but Lebanon is a truly gifted country in terms of its natural beauty. Of course politically it is fu*k%d, and tensions still smoulder, both internally and with its neighbours both to the East (Syria) and obviously to the south, with Israel. Hezbollah now have 14 seats in the parliament, but have significantly more influence than that in the south of Lebanon.

Our next trip is to the Hezbollah political heartland, as we will detour to Baalbek tomorrow, on our way back over the mountains and back to Syria and Damascus.