Beach stories

Besides working on my thesis, I explored the city and discovered the different angles of Beirut. The diversity on the streets in buildings, people, food and atmosphere. In the last weeks I went to the beach, not once but several times (lucky me) !

Beach #1: This beach is just 15 minutes away from my appartment a little bit North of Beirut. It was a private beach, as most of the beaches here and it was 15.000 LPB to enter (around 9 euro). But for this money you will get a sunlounger and a parasol. What was interesting is that you have service on the beach, so you can order drinks and food on the beach! While I reaaaally wanted a cold coke I noticed that the people around me were all drinking hot Lebanese coffee. Another unmissable feature was the music blasting over the beach. The beach is a place to party and be seen, girls were wearing matching bikini, sandals, nailpolish, hats, sunglasses and a lot of make-up. I was amazed by a women who took over a 100 selfies in 20 minutes, she even asked me to take a picture of her while I was taking a bite of my sandwich. I was surrounded by Kim Kardashian look-a-likes, but it was good entertainment while I was observing Lebanese beach behaviour.

Beach

Beach #2: Another beach I visited was a surfbeach in Jiyeh. Contrasting the first beach I visited, this beach was entirely empty. I visited with a classmate and her friends and we were lucky with our private beach! Another good thing about this beach is the price, for us it was free because the owner was a friend of my friend's friend (got it?). But normally you only pay 3000 for this beach :D!

Beach #3: On the 25th of June my roommates and I went to Batroun, this is a small village 50km North of Beirut. Batroun is one of the oldest cities of the world. The town boasts historic churches from Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodox, and has beautiful beaches! I fell in love with this little town with a romantic atmosphere and hidden alleys. So how was the beach?? There are many resorts but we went to the public beach. It was free of charge and the water was crystal clear! The only thing you need to keep in mind is that the beaches up North are mostly stoney beaches while South the beaces are sandy. Another tip concerns food. So of you are on the public beach; look at your right and you discover up the rocks a little restaurant with colourfull umbrellas. Go there! The food is amazing! Fresh fish and great salads, and for the internet-junkies WiFi is free!

Public beach in Batroun

Beach #4: Well, this is not merely a beach. This was paradise! It is a beach resort with a giant pool (claim: biggest one of the Middle East) and with even twi jacuzzi bars. Maëva and I discovered a website were they offer entrance tickets for 50% of the normal price, so we only paid 10 dollars to enter. This is an excellent deal, however these tickets are only valid for the 'family' area and not the VIP area. But that was not problem for us and the family area is as well beautiful. The pool is really clean and the service is great. We enjoyed it so much that we went last week again with another classmate Donja. At the beach or pool everyone is smoking shisha. NOTE: please be carefull because shisha can be dangerous and burn your leg.. Our shisha fell and burned my leg.

Janna sur Mer in Damour

Beach #5: This beach was a small mistake. Mäeva and I went to the private beach of Beirut last week. It is located at the end of Corniche (Corniche is an area near the yacht harbor with a lot of skyscapers, fancy cars and restaurants), named Ramlet al-Baida. This was a mistake as there were only men, and mostly (or all) Muslim. We felt super uncomfortable in our bikini but we didn't want to leave right away as we paid the taxi already and didn't want to admit our failure. In the end we have learned our lesson. Even the taxi drives asked us several times if we were sure we wanted to go to the public beach, he even called his friend to try to convince us it was a bad idea. But no we know.. otherwise we would still wonder about the public beach option in Beirut. Still, it was an unique experience. One but never again!