Back in London having a last taste of amazing museums, and shops.


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Travelled into the mountains on Tuesday to visit the monastery of St Anthony the Great. There is a cave there where the mad were chained to cure them. Brother Michael, a very charismatic monk, told us all about it. The place was like Jenolan caves with a monastery. We then went further up the mountains to visit the tiny remaining cedar forest, preserved thanks to Queen Victoria who had a wall built around it to keep out goats. The mist came down and it was quite eerie.
Wednesday we walked around the old town, medieval, the citadel,Ottoman, and the archaeological site, Neolithic to Persian.

Lebanon

Blog acting a little odd today








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In Tripoli today and I was surprised at how much more conservative and religious it was. We went to the Great Mosque and the citadel as well as wandering through the souk seeing the various khans that were the produce markets. We also were able to visit a disused ottoman hamman. It was in remarkable condition though it was a long time since it had been years for baths, very original in it's condition.


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Lebanons ancient sights have been less than spectacular so far and today was 19thcentury churches and palaces so there is some disaffection in the ranks especially since the hotel tonight is rather ordinary


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Inland today, away from the coast towards the hills and mountains, not surprisingly a more conservative and religious society. We went to a Druze village and saw a palace from the 19th century


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Lebanon

Today we went to Sidon which although it was a Phoenician city doesnot have much left of that period, the crusader castle was good and the traces of an Ottoman past are very clear


We also visited the soap museum which is mostly an excuse to sell u stuff. They did actually show you the process here are some columns of soap drying.



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Whole day in Colchester was not actually enough, the museum in the castle on the site of Claudius' temple that Boudicca burnt was excellent. Great collection on the rebellion unsurprisingly. Some really good examples of roman pottery and quite a lot of metal as well. The heritage trail mostly followed the Roman wall diverting to churches frequently built with roman remains. I didn't get to the other 2 museums in the town or explore the extent of the park not to mention the zoo.


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Simple one hour journey morphed into a major exercise as some dimwit stuffed his truck under a railway bridge at Diss and screwed the network. Finally arrived to find some other fuckwit had put the town at the top of a hill with the railway station at the bottom. Who is in charge and how come they are so disorganized?
Colchester is the oldest recorded town in England and mightily into myth building, the town hall has St Helena on it facing Jerusalem and holding a sword. This is supposedly her birth place as the daughter of the local king, Old King Cole that is.


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