Middle East - Anthony Ham [366]
Information
INTERNET ACCESS
Most of Tripoli’s internet cafés are congregated on the main roads heading down to Al-Mina.
Dream Net 2 ( 03-858 821; Rue Riad al-Solh; per hr LL1000; 9am-midnight) On the opposite side of the road from the Hot Café. Com and less atmospheric, but cheaper and just as efficient.
Hot Café.Com ( 622 888; Rue Riad al-Solh; with own laptop per hr LL1500, with café laptop per hr LL2500; 9am-midnight) A large friendly place owned by an Australian expat.
MONEY
There are ATMs all over town, and lots on Rue Riad al-Solh.
Walid M el-Masri Co Exchange ( 430 115; Rue Tall; 8am-8pm Mon-Sat, 8am-1pm Sun) Exchanges US-dollar travellers cheques (US$2 per cheque).
POST
Al-Mina Post office (Rue ibn Sina; 8am-5pm Mon-Fri, 8am-noon Sat)
Main post office (Rue Fouad Chehab; 8am-5pm Mon-Fri, 8am-noon Sat) Around 400m south of Abdel Hamid Karami Sq.
TOURIST INFORMATION
Tourist office ( 433 590; www.lebanon-tourism.gov.lb; Abdel Hamid Karami Sq; 8am-5pm Mon-Sat) Staff members are friendly and helpful and speak English and French. Opening hours can be erratic, so try again if you find it closed.
Sights
OLD CITY
Dating from the Mamluk era (14th and 15th centuries), the compact Old City is a maze of narrow alleys, colourful souqs, hammams, khans, mosques and madrassas. It’s a lively and fascinating place where craftspeople, including tailors, jewellers, soap makers and coppersmiths, continue to work as they have done for centuries. The Souq al-Sayyaghin (the gold souq), Souq al-Attarin (for perfumes and spices), the medieval Souq al-Haraj and Souq an-Nahhassin (the brass souq) are all well worth a wander.
The Great Mosque, built on the site of a 12th-century Crusader cathedral and incorporating some of its features, has a magnificent entrance and an unusual minaret that was probably once the cathedral bell tower. Opposite the mosque’s northern entrance is the Madrassa al-Nouriyat, which has distinctive black-and-white stonework and a beautiful inlaid mihrab, and is still in use today. Attached to the east side of the Grand Mosque is the Madrassa al-Qartawiyya, converted between 1316 and 1326 from the former St Mary’s church. Its elegant black-and-white facade and honeycomb-patterned half-dome above the portal are well worth a look.
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ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR Amelia Thomas
My favourite sight in Tripoli isn’t actually much of a sight at all, a fact that somehow makes it even more evocative than the ancient souqs or the looming citadel. Today, it’s little more than the vast, oval and barren central area of a traffic roundabout, on a road heading down from the centre of Tripoli towards Al-Mina.
Doesn’t look like much? No, but this derelict space was once proudly known as the Rashid Karami International Fair (Map), commissioned in Lebanon’s early ’60s heyday, and filled with imposing concrete geometric forms, as a sort of modernist’s answer to the great 19th-century World Fairs of Chicago, Paris and London.
Designed by the venerable architect Oscar Niemeyer, now over a century old and still going strong, the overgrown and underloved fairground stands as a testament to the changing fortunes of the country itself. Unlike its sister Niemeyer works – the most famous of which is undoubtedly the space-age concrete capital of Brasilia – the fairground has never received much international attention, though a band of Tripoli residents is working hard to prevent its demolition. Today, though sadly you can’t wander through its half-finished pavilion, past its strange, desolate statues, a glance from the outskirts offers an artistic reflection of the plagued history of the city and the country as a whole.
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You have to glance up to see the Al-Muallaq Mosque (Hanging Mosque), a small and unusual 14th-century mosque, on the second floor of a building.