Getting the flavor of ... Lebanon’s rediscovered playground

After decades of political upheaval, Lebanon’s 7,000-year-old port is regaining its status as a “jewel of the Mediterranean.”

Lebanon’s rediscovered playground

Byblos, Lebanon’s ancient port, has been reborn, said Lionel Beehner in The New York Times. For centuries, the “powerful lure of its ­7,000-year-old history” was enough to attract visitors from near and far to its Crusader citadel, Phoenician ramparts, and Bronze Age ruins of “L-shaped ­temples scattered along a seaside bluff like oversize Lego blocks.” Now, after decades of political upheaval, this city just up the coast from Beirut is regaining its status as a “jewel of the Mediterranean”—and drawing a much ­different crowd as it transforms itself from sleepy ­seaport into “gated playground for Lebanon’s nouveau riche.” Party yachts share its white beaches with fishing boats. “Arab starlets and their hangers-on” pour out of the open-air bars and restaurants, which serve up fresh seafood to an inter­national clientele. With more hotels and villas ­opening this summer, things are just heating up.

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