25 years after the event (March 2022) I am starting to write up the wonderful 1997 trip Janie and I took to see Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, followed by some restful time in Eilat.
Hopefully my diary/log together with the many pictures we took will prompt my memory to tell the whole story, as my notes are light and even the Abercrombie and Kent itinerary (a bespoke jobbie for us as independent travellers) seems to have gone walkabout in the intervening quarter of a century.
Writing about it now is tinged with sadness, as I realise that many of the things we saw have been destroyed and can never be seen again. The artisan depicted in the headline photo, working away in the Aleppo Souk, is but one example of that.
The photos have been available on Flickr for some time, so Ogblog readers who like to look at pictures and read captions can glean much about the journey without reading the Ogblog pieces.
Here are links to the pictures divided by country visited:
The Ogblog pieces (will) mostly cover a day each, with highlights from the photo albums (and some stock photos where desires/required) to illustrate the stories.
Set off for the border – completed formalities with ease (apparently) and then went to Krak des Chevaliers, somewhat against Raymond’s will. Superb crusader castle – huge and interesting.
The border crossing from Lebanon to Syria was the only one in which our driver/guide was allowed to take us across the border some distance and was thus the only straightforward one of this trip. But Raymond (whom Daisy has just described as, “oh yeh, he was a bit of an idiot”) did not want to show us Krak des Chevaliers – he wanted to drive past it as he deemed it a lesser place than the Tripoli citadel.
We got our way. Just as well. Krak was both fascinating and stunning-looking.
Coincidentally, I have recently (Spring 2022: at the time of writing this piece) been in correspondence with cousin Adam Green who was commissioned the preceding year to do an illustrative visualisation of Krak. We have enjoyed swapping pictures and tales of our very different Krak experiences. Adam has (even more recently) written up his tale and posted his wonderful illustration on-line - click here or the embedded link below.
Left Beirut early – drove out through East Beirut – past Byblos and then up into mountains – superb vistas to photograph – to Cedars [see headline photo].
Stunning scenes on the roads up into the mountains
Mist was lifting as we drove up – stayed up long enough for our photos and promptly descended again to pelt down [on us].
Down to Byblos – an old Phoenician ruin (the building, not me)
Toured castle which includes Phoenician and Roman ruins as well as Crusader and Ottoman periods.
You can see Pepe Abed’s in the distance
Rested late afternoon and had dinner at restaurant Pepe Abed’s [aka Chez Pepe] and tried chanchalle? (cheese & tomato) and fresh fish.
Le patron mange ici (mash potato and stewed apple).
In 1997 we did really meet Pépé himself and he really did eat while we were eating there and he really was just eating soft food rather than tucking in to the hearty food we were eating.
People continue (into the 2020s) to claim in their on-line reviews to meet Pépé Abed at his restaurant or at his fishing club, but as he was old as the hills when we met him in 1997 and he died in 2006, my guess is that they now see his son or a “Tribute Pépé”.
All of the Lebanon photos in our album can be seen here and below:
and on to Sidon, by which time sun had turned to rain. Ruined castle– old souk – patisserie.
Then back to Beirut for tour of green line development – shopping and then rest before dinner with Elias Habre at Al Mijana (beautiful old villa in Ashrafieh (East Side).
Beirut CornicheDinner with Elias Habre
Janie had treated the Habre family in London for many years…decades even. Elias Habre was in Beirut at the time and insisted on providing hospitality to us that evening.
Al Majana still seems to be well regarded in 2022 if this review is anything to go by.
All of the Lebanon photos in our album can be seen here and below:
Sunday 2 March 1997 – Flew out of Heathrow p.m. – only 30 minutes late.
Got held up at the airport ever so slightly by immigration.
Got to Hotel Bristol late – dined at Kabab-Ji on Hamra Street near hotel.
Held Up At Immigration
Yes, “held up ever so slightly by immigration” is code for a rather peculiar incident, perhaps based on my physiognomy.
Of course our papers were entirely in order and Janie was waved through when we got to immigration at Beirut airport. In my case, however, a military-looking fellow stepped forward and swiped my passport from the immigration official’s hand for “routine checking”.
Janie got a little aggravated when she realised that she’d got through and I hadn’t but was told simply to stand at a distance and wait.
The immigration official engaged me in conversation, which I imagine was part of the “checking” process.
“First time in our country?”
“No”, I said, “I visited your country as a child, with my parents, many years ago.”
“Where did you visit?”
“We went to Beirut and Baalbek”, I said authoritatively.
“That’s not very much visiting”, he said.
“No”, I replied, “we were on a Mediterranean cruise, so only stayed here for one day, unfortunately”.
“Ah”, he said, “if you were on a Mediterranean cruise as a child you must also have visited ISRAEL”. That last word was hurled at me in an expletive manner.
I realised that our whole trip might be over. Were the officials to search our travel papers, they would see unequivocally that we were going on to Israel at the end of our trip. Beirut International Airport (Air Side) might be the sole and entire extent of our holiday.
Three Weeks Of Bliss? Many Stay Longer!
I smiled at the immigration official.
The immigration official smiled back.
I put on my thoughtful face, to show that I was trying to dredge the memories…or the right words. Then I said:
“Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I was 10 years old when my parents took me on that cruise. So I don’t remember all the places we visited back in 1973. But I clearly remember visiting Lebanon and I clearly remember liking it very much and wanting to come back to see more, so here I am!”
The official smiled and laughed. His laugh suggested the thought, “I know that you know that you went to Israel on that cruise”.
I smiled and laughed back, which probably implied, “I know that you know that I know that I went to Israel on that cruise”.
But I think his response was also a sign to the military-looking guy, who appeared as if from nowhere at that moment with my passport and said “welcome to Lebanon” as he handed me back the vital document.
We rather liked Le Bristol Hotel. Steeped in Beirut history, it felt like “the” place to stay for the couple of nights we were to be in Beirut. An affordable luxury too.
Sad to learn that the economic crisis and then the pandemic led to the place permanently closing in 2020. It’s history and undignified end well described and illustrated in the Middle East Eye piece – click here.
It’s hard to tell for sure, but I’m guessing that the Kababji in question, given the Hamra Street clue, is this one – click here.
Not many reviews post pandemic – ouch!
Photographing yer food hadn’t been invented back then, but it is more than likely that our meze looked a bit like this:
The fifth port of call was Beirut, in Lebanon. Our visit was just a few weeks before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, which must have put a stop to such touring for some while.
I returned to Lebanon, more than 20 years later, with Janie, with hilariously predictable results at Beirut airport:
I remember the coach journey from the Beirut port to Baalbek being a long and mostly tedious one. Dad took the street scene below twixt the two places.
Baalbek was nestled amongst some permanent refugee camps which I imagine might still be there – they were still there when we visited in 1997.
I remember being wowed by the ruined temples there – finding them in many ways more awe-inspiring than the Athens ruins, not least because they were less crowded and we were able to scramble around the ruins more comprehensively. That might well no longer be the case.
Some crumbling old ruins (and us) scrambling around the Temple of Jupiter
I was especially struck by the Temple of Bacchus, depicted below. I remember dad saying that Bacchus was his kinda Roman God. Hard to disagree now that I know a bit more about him.
Me and Mum Before The Lion Head Capital
There is just over a minute of cine, between 10’25” and 11’30”, until you start to see the invasion of light damage on the cine and the film jumps from Lebanon to Corfu, several days later. Dad lost almost a whole reel – I think the film got stuck in the camera at Crete and he had no changing bag with which to rescue the reel before most of it, including his Jerusalem footage, was destroyed.
Mum was very upset. I don’t think dad ever travelled without a changing bag again and I certainly never travelled without one…until digital photography came along.
Fifty years later, writing in August 2023, I can state with conviction that sea cruises are extremely fashionable amongst the travelling classes, while Janie and I are both relentlessly keen to avoid such holidays.
But in 1973, ahead of my eleventh birthday, my parents took me on this Mediterranean cruise ahead of me starting at Alleyn’s School for my secondary education.
Context
I suspect that dad bought our holiday at a bucket shop price in a travel agent on or near St John’s Hill Battersea (near his shop) and I suspect that it was sold to dad as a “holiday of a lifetime”.
In truth, we were probably lucky that it didn’t lead to an extreme shortening of all our lifetimes. Our ship, the Delphi, was part of a cobbled together fleet of ships owned by Costas Efthymiades, one of whose crowded tubs, the Heleanna, had caught fire and led to dozens of fatalities on my birthday two year’s earlier. “Hold the front page!” news even in the Evening Sentinel, although the typesetter, in their rush, seems to have jumbled the headline!
While word of the above tragedy and the negligence cases that arose from it almost certainly evaded my father, I don’t suppose it had a positive impact on the market for that particular family of passenger ships. Hence, I’m just guessing here, the bucket shop price that I imagine would have attracted dad at that time.
Hold on…wait a minute…SW11 5RG – Lavender Hill – dad must have known some of those Clarkson’s people. I bet dad didn’t pay £73 per head.
Our tub, The Delphi, was probably not quite such a death trap as the ill-fated Heleanna. It had started its life primarily as a passenger ship, Ferdinand de Lesseps, rather than a cargo ship, so its conversion to a cruise ship was probably more appropriate and safer.
I do remember the days at sea feeling very crowded, albeit fun-packed for kids like me. The first two-and-a-half minutes of the cine film (see links below) looks even more crowded than the following photo.
Still, I have very happy memories of this holiday. We even cruised again as a family, one last time, a couple of year’s later. By that time, I think I was able to express my opinion: I loved seeing lots of different places on a holiday, but I did not love being on a cruise ship.
Itinerary
I didn’t start keeping a diary until 1974, so I have had to try and reconstruct the itinerary from the photographic/cinematographic materials (see links), from memory and from a vague sense of routing, geography and timings. There might be some inaccuracies:
18 August – Day Zero: Streatham -> Luton Airport -> Porto di Rimini;
Historians might note that, within a year, all of the countries we visited, with the exception of Yugoslavia, had been involved in a war. Within a few weeks of our trip, Clarkson’s Cruise-Jet holidays were avoiding the Lebanon and Israel stops as a result of the Yom Kippur war, which made the term “Holy Land Cruise” somewhat of a misnomer.
Links
There is a movie of this holiday. Not one of dad’s best; he/we never got around to adding a commentary so the soundtrack is just music. Also there was some film spoilage which destroyed most of the film from Lebanon and all of the Israel/Crete footage is lost.
Dad’s main shtick for this holiday was Stereo (3D) still photography. Here is a link to the digitised stereos I have painstakingly made from the stereo transparencies.
Stereo images in stereo – click the above picture link
You either need a viewing gadget or extremely strong eyes trained to be able to see stereo images in stereo.
The following link shows the stereo images in mono, as it were:
Stereo images in mono – all the left ones followed by all the right ones – click the above picture link
There are also a few prints from the single roll of film dad put into his ordinary camera. They are mostly pictures taken with flash in the evenings. Dad clearly forgot about this roll for some time – there is one picture from December of 1973 in the little batch of prints and they are all dated May 1974. Fifty years later, can you imagine anyone waiting nine months between snapping and seeing the results.
Print scans – just a few – click the above picture link
The expression “cobblers children” comes to mind. I expect dad took the camera with the half-finished roll to the shop with a view to doing something or other with it and then “rediscovered it” months later – possibly on more than one procrastinating occasion.
Day Zero: Streatham To Porto di Rimini via Luton Airport
Nowhere in the materials we have retained does it mention Rimini – I just firmly remember that we embarked and disembarked there. In my mind for much of my childhood that place was a major port from whence the Mediterranean opened up. Most likely it was a place where Clarkson’s and/or Efthymiades had done a good deal, because it doesn’t otherwise make sense to start and end a Greek islands/Holy Land cruise at Rimini.
I remember that Dad was very excited that we would be flying on a Lockheed TriStar, which was a relatively new plane at that time.
This holiday was my first, and to date only, experience of flying from and to Luton Airport. For much of the remainder of my childhood, I took pleasure in having been there, whenever the then ubiquitous Campari advert was shown:
I remember little about my journeys to and from Luton Airport, but paradise it wasn’t.
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