ANOTHER STORM BATTERED THE COAST, SNARLING TRAFFIC and throwing ocean spray over the sea walls. By the time we reached Deir al Oumara, just miles from and 3000 feet above the Mediterranean, it had changed to snow. Preparing for the worst, we provisioned at the mini-market and settled in at the 300 year-old Deir al Oumara Hotel.
Snowed in, Deir al Oumara
This could have been the most charming lodging of the trip, if only . . . The room never warmed up despite running both electric heaters full-throttle. Both the electricity and internet were sporatic, probably storm related. The staff pretty much neglected us — and we were the only guests. Oh, yeah, we got snowed in.
Hippodrome, Tyre
The snow continued most of Friday and I had to chip ice off the ramp from the parking area with an old dust pan so we could eventually get to the road to Tyre. The one-time Phoenician port city is home to the largest Roman hippodrome in the Empire, 480 meters in length. Little has been done to preserve the site except to repair the Triumphal Arch yet, somehow, parts of the aquaduct, sections of the grandstands and the necropolis, complete with sarcophagi, still remain.
On the other side of town we wandered around dozens of still-standing Roman arches and the remains of a mosaic walkway 180 meters long.
