Beirut

9:00 AM — Departure from Beirut Your knowledgeable English-speaking driver collects you from your Beirut hotel and heads southeast into the Chouf Mountains — pine-forested ridges climbing above the coastal plain as you wind upward toward Beiteddine.

Arrive at one of the most magnificent palaces in the Arab world — built between 1788 and 1840 by Emir Bashir II, the powerful ruler who unified Lebanon's mountain communities under a single authority for the first time in centuries. Three grand interconnected courtyards decorated with hand-cut geometric tilework, carved cedar-wood ceilings, and elaborately painted reception halls reveal the extraordinary ambition and craftsmanship of this Chouf mountain retreat. Beneath the palace, an underground museum preserves Lebanon's finest collection of Byzantine mosaics — floor panels of extraordinary colour and detail recovered from archaeological sites across the country. Today the palace serves as the official summer residence of the Lebanese President. Your driver shares the full story of Emir Bashir and the palace he built to endure.