Day 14: Wadi Kadisha & Cedars of Bcharre

We set off for the mountains with Eliane, Alain, Tony & Nicole. We went with 2 cars. We went to the around the Kadisha valley, Historians believe that the Kadisha Valley has had monastic communities continuously since the earliest years of Christianity. First we drove   up a steep mountain gorge.  My original google search concluded it was  the Melchite Catholic the Monastery of St. John of Chouweir or Deir et-Tabcheh... But I was mistaken. It is instead the Monastery Saint Anthony of Qozhaya that we visited.  The Monastery has a museum which displays the first Arabic printing press, along with other interesting artifactsIt also shows caves where early Christians used to pray.

We had lunch in Edhen. This restaurant had poutine on the menu. Samer tried it out and the thing looked disgusting and nothing like a Quebecois poutine. The server was such a space cadet and they didn't have half of the items on their menu.

Finally around 2pm we were in Bcharre, and we went to one of Lebanon's two Cedar reserves, the Arz el Rab reserve. Some of the Cedars in this reservation are 3500 years old. It blows the mind. The sad part is that some of those trees have half been cut down recently for firewood, because people were so cold. In the reserve there is a small Maronite chapel who's name I cannot find, but it is quite pretty.

After exiting the Cedar reserve, we walked along the road where there are plenty of souvenir merchants. One of the souvenir shops, the guy talked to us, asking where we were from. Samer said he was Lebanese, and I said I was a Canadian. He thought it was cute and took a keychain made from cedar and burned our names into it with 2010 and Bcharre as a souvenir of our trip. We ended buying a wooden Cedar box for me from him as well.

We got back to Beirut it was dark.