Where To Go in Beirut
27 places across 9 categories — the landmarks on the postcards, the observation decks, the museums, the parks, and the neighborhoods where the city actually lives.
Landmarks
TODO — what landmarks in Beirut are actually worth the time.
Raouché and the Corniche
Two limestone stacks in the sea and five kilometres of seafront promenade — the one place the whole city shares.
Mohammad al-Amin Mosque
A blue-domed mosque of 2008 standing beside a Maronite cathedral, with the grave of the man who built it outside.
Martyrs' Square and Downtown
A statue full of bullet holes, and a rebuilt city centre that a great many Beirutis have never forgiven.
The Roman Baths and the Cardo
Berytus was a Roman colony with the greatest law school in the empire, and pieces of it are lying in the middle of downtown.
Saint George Cathedral and the Crypt
The oldest church in Beirut, with an archaeological museum in the crypt showing a Roman street under a Byzantine church under a Crusader cathedral.
Museums
TODO — what museums in Beirut are actually worth the time.
National Museum of Beirut
The collection survived fifteen years on the front line because the director sealed it in concrete.
Sursock Museum
A Venetian-Ottoman villa given to the city as a modern art museum, wrecked by the port blast and reopened in 2023.
American University of Beirut
A green campus falling down a hillside to the sea, with the third oldest museum in the Middle East on it.
MIM Mineral Museum
One of the finest private mineral collections in the world, in a university basement, and almost nobody knows it is there.
Robert Mouawad Private Museum
A collector's palace of Islamic manuscripts, Roman glass and jewellery, in one of the last great Beiruti mansions.
History
TODO — what history in Beirut are actually worth the time.
Beit Beirut
A sniper's building on the Green Line, kept as it was found, and the closest Beirut has to a museum of its own war.
The Egg and the Green Line
A concrete cinema shell abandoned mid-construction in 1975, and the front line that ran past it for fifteen years.
The Port and August 2020
Two thousand seven hundred tonnes of ammonium nitrate, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, and nobody held responsible.
Parks & Outdoors
TODO — what parks & outdoors in Beirut are actually worth the time.
Horsh Beirut
The largest green space in the city, closed to the public for twenty-five years, and still only partly open.
Sanayeh Garden
The oldest public garden in Beirut, small, central, shaded, and one of the very few reliably open.
Ramlet al-Baida and the Beaches
The last public sand beach in Beirut, and an honest answer about whether you should swim off it.
Food & Drink
TODO — what food & drink in Beirut are actually worth the time.
Manousheh and the Furn
Flatbread with thyme, out of a bakery oven, before nine in the morning. The best cheap breakfast in the Mediterranean.
Souk el Tayeb
A Saturday farmers' market that started as an attempt to get Lebanese from every sect to stand in the same place.
Mezze and the Long Lunch
Thirty small dishes, arak with water and ice, and four hours at the table. This is what Lebanon does better than anyone.
Culture & Music
TODO — what culture & music in Beirut are actually worth the time.
Shopping
TODO — what shopping in Beirut are actually worth the time.
Day Trips
TODO — what day trips in Beirut are actually worth the time.
Byblos
Seven thousand years of continuous occupation in one mound, a Crusader castle on top, and a fishing harbour to eat in.
Baalbek
The largest Roman temple ever built, on stones weighing eight hundred tonnes — and a trip that depends entirely on the security situation.
Neighbourhoods
TODO — what each part of Beirut is like to walk around, and who lives there.
