Travellers grinding east over the mountains from Beirut to Lebanon's gargantuan Ba'albek Roman temple complex have the opportunity to contemplate more poignant ruins along the way.
One such example is the $65m, 70 metre-high, Mdeirej viaduct which links the Lebanese capital with the Bekka Valley and Damascus. It had half its southern carriageway neatly peeled off by Israeli bombers during the recent 34-day conflict that cost Lebanon 106 other bridges, 1,200 civilian lives, and 35,000 homes.
Miraculously, however, the country's principal tourist attractions all emerged unscathed from what laconic local operators refer to as "our recent challenge".A UNESCO audit of the five World Heritage sites in Lebanon detected no serious damage - and my own excursions in the second week of October to Ba'albek and the Phoencian port of Byblos confirmed the good reports. Read more.
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