Second full day in Lebanon and it was a Friday. Fridays can be tricky in Lebanon. It is not considered as a weekend by law but for Muslims, Friday noon prayer is quite significant and we weren’t sure how much of any city in Lebanon will be live. We picked Tripoli and decided to start really early to be able to see as much as we could before noon and before the prayer time
How to get to Tripoli from Beirut:
Public buses running between Beirut and Tripoli are pretty good. From Charles Helou Terminal in Beirut, Connexion buses are running every hour to Tripoli. Buses are nice and comfortable and really cheap for two hours bus ride. There’s no need to buy tickets in advance. We just took a short Uber drive from Al-Hamra to the bus terminal and got the tickets without any problem an the bus was pretty much empty.
It only cost us 5 NZD with easy enjoyable ride to the heart of Tripoli. as soon as we got to Tripoli all people started to hop off in the area that looked like city center but stayed on the bus to see where is the actual bus stop to be able to find our way back to the terminal in the afternoon. Bus terminal was in the heart of the city. As soon as we got off the bus, we were touched with the hospitality of the people in Tripoli. They kindly showed us the time table for the return bus to Beirut and also showed us how to get to the main bazaar.
What to do in Tripoli?
Tripoli is the second biggest city of Lebanon after Beirut. Tripoli port is the major port in Lebanon because Tripoli is the industrial hub of Lebanon as well. Like all the other cities in Lebanon, its history is dated back to long long time ago. It is famous for its Crusader fortress and Mamluk style architecture and the famous soap khan and tailors khan in the Bazaar. We decided to go for a quick breakfast first. After walking through the busy streets and chaotic traffic, we followed locals to the bazaar area. On the way we found a nice cafe where all the old local guys had their morning coffee and smoking their cigarettes and we knew that this is the place for the first stop! One of the ultimate street foods of Tripoli is flat sesame bread stuffed with cheese and toasted over a fire, We got two of those with an amazing Arabic coffee, couldn’t be happier. Cafes normally don’t have the bread, you order it and they will get it from street stalls for you and as always sign language always works 😉
Road side cafes are the best. Sitting with locals enjoying the coffee and watching life goes by and of course all these Mercedes of Tripoli, didn’t I mention that? Tripoli is packed with Mercedes cars like no where else that we’ve ever been to. 90% of the cars across the city are all Mercedes.
We haven’t started our city tour yet but we already loved Tripoli. Mostly because of the people, they were super nice and were stopping to give us some tips on where to have lunch or buy sweets.
We finally found our way into the market and instantly you could feel how live it is. The spices aroma filled the covered passages of the bazaar, sellers were shouting and inviting everyone in. Women were busy closing the deal and negotiating the price. You could almost find everything there. Shops were all old and tiny with the stone arched ceilings and it looked like these shops were there forever probably selling the same things for generations.
We were walking through bazaar mazes of passage ways for few hours. Amir got a hand full of fresh grapes and peaches as he was taking photo of a fruit seller. Everyone was offering something and absolutely friendly but like rest of Lebanon that we have visited so far, there were not even one tourist in the streets. We were a group of five friends but only Amir and I were really keen to visit Tripoli. Sarvi our close friend joined us, because we really wanted to spend some time together but I’m not sure even she was keen to visit Tripoli. The other two weren’t into Tripoli as well. The main reason is simply the picture that comes to mind thinking about Tripoli which is not true. Thinking of Lebanon, probably most people can fantasize Beirut, its beaches and Lebanese food but not somewhere like Tripoli which is a shame. As a result, we could visit a city as authentic and pure as Tripoli unspoiled with warm-hearted people who were willing to show the best of their city to foreigners.
Like rest of Lebanon, presence of military was obvious but like locals, soldiers were super friendly and were curious to know why we were in Tripoli. We kept walking till we heard the call for noon pray and then pretty much everyone left their shops and headed to mosques. we never felt unsafe in Tripoli, but watching all the locals left their shops as it was and left for the pray, showed us how safe the city actually is. I mean how many places in the world, you can leave your shop unattended and unlocked? Super impressive. We hang around a little bit, but within few minutes the live market just changed to the dead zone.
It was already lunch time anyway, we looked around to find something nice to eat. Unlike Sidon, I didn’t have a list of restaurants that we really wanted to try but we haven’t had any seafood and we were right by the sea so we decided to find a nice seafood restaurant and without internet it wasn’t easy 🙂
We got into one of the old Mercedes taxis and just showed him an area on the map which looked like nice beachy area to hangout and find nice restaurants. After 10 minutes drive we got to a road by an industrial port and the taxi driver said, here it is!!! And we knew it wasn’t the smartest choice just to pick a point on the google map.
Anyway using the sign language, we asked him to take us to the actual beach front area with some seafood restaurants. He took us to Al Mina area and dropped us by the main road and showed us that we need go uphill in the alleys to get to restaurants/cafes area. The area looked really nice but again no no sign of life and no cafe or restaurant was open. We were walking aimlessly tired, hungry and thirsty, saw a group of young girls and boys parking their car to head somewhere, I literally jumped in front of them and asked for advise tor somewhere to eat and they asked us to follow them. Like everybody else that we met in Tripoli, they were super friendly and warm, kindly changed their way to show us a good restaurant. Al Mina was old but was more European than the traditional bazar architecture. All the cafes were closed and our new friends told us that they all open at 5:00 pm. We finally got to a small restaurants and as soon as I saw the name, I knew that it’s good. I’ve seen it in one of Mark Wiens YouTube channel and totally forgot that it was in Tripoli. It was called “Sailor Woman”, Ran with a group of women obviously. A small cozy place with a limited selection of home made unique seafood. Mainly served in a flat bread. You could choose between what was available and they kindly gave you a bite of each to make it easier to choose. Their mom kept bringing fresh containers of food and they were busy mainly with locals for takeaways. The weather was so hot and we had been walking for a while so we started with a cold beer and an amazing combinations of dishes made with Tahini and calamari, fish stew with lots of lemon and herb and lots of other small seafood bites. It was such an amazing experience, definitely recommend it if you are visiting Tripoli. We would really liked to see Al Mina late at night. Easy to imagine how live it would be with all the cafes and bars open with a cold breeze from the see. We walked downhill back to the main road and got another taxi to drop us at bus terminal. From there it was really easy to get the same bus back to Beirut. We ended up in Beirut by 6:00 pm. We had an interesting evening at Beirut. I’ll give you our first real impression of Beirut in the next post.
