On its trip organized on May 12, 2018, the Social Committee headed to the Dinniyeh region, located in Northern Lebanon. Dinniyeh is a mountainous region par excellence, as it extends from the town of Minieh on the coast up to the Arbaeen Mountains, located to the north of Qornet al-Sawda. Dinniyeh includes a large number of villages, most of which are inhabited by Sunni Islamic groups, but the Romaïan Christians still exist in some of its villages, including the town of Haql Al-Eazima, which was visited during one of the phases of this journey. Ecclesiastically, Dinniyeh is affiliated with the Orthodox Diocese of Tripoli and Koura and their dependencies.
After leaving Achrafieh, early in the morning, the delegation headed north, passing through the Madfoun Bridge, where they had breakfast at the Bread House oven. This was an enjoyable opportunity for the trip participants to socialize.
In its first phase, the trip headed to the town of Bakheoun, where the Palace of Dreams is located. It is a newly built architectural touristic site characterized by a strange style that contains various decorative, geometric and artistic shapes. This site allows visitors to have fun and to enjoy discovering the shapes composed of a multitude of colored stones. The place is fenced with onyx stones, and decorated with niches and stone doors made of flint and granite quarried from the vicinity of the town of Bakheoun. Muhammad Hosher, his daughter Dalida, and his friend Muhammad Farran started building this tourist attraction in 1994, and constructed it in multiple stages until the date of this visit.
In choosing the landmarks that make up this building, they were inspired by symbols of different religions and many archaeological and natural sites in Lebanon. The trip participants went to the café next to the palace, where they drank coffee and spent enjoyable times talking and chatting.
In the second phase of the trip, the visitors headed to the town of Haql Al-Eazima, which is not far from Bakheoun. The goal was to visit the St. Nicholas Church, located in the center of the town. This church was built in 1955, then expanded in 1977. It was damaged during the Lebanese Civil War and burned, and was restored in 2005 thanks to the efforts of the parish priest, Rev. Father Nicholas Daoud, who returned from oversea. The latter received the delegation and explained to them the history of the church and his efforts to reunite the villagers who were displaced. The visit to the church was followed by an exchange dialogue with the priest in the new church hall, in an atmosphere of generous hospitality.
The third phase of the trip was devoted to the natural Al-Zahlan grotto near the town of Al-Qattain in Wadi Sir. This cave is a little-known Lebanese tourist attraction, but it is of incredible beauty. It consists of three levels, but only the upper level is currently open to visitors. At the entrance to the cave, there is a suspension bridge between two hills that allows visitors to enjoy the natural scenes of the Dinniyeh area down to the coast. As for the grotto, it contains basements, wonderful natural forms, arches, and stone artefacts carved by nature over millions of years. In the cave runs an abundant spring called the Zahlan Spring.
At approximately 3 PM in the afternoon, the visitors moved to Jisr Rashein Restaurant, in Zghorta area where they had a delicious lunch and spent no less than two hours enjoying this beautiful site and conversing about the trip.
As usual, the trip participants, on their way back to Beirut, expressed their admiration for the perfect planning of this meeting and thanked the Social Committee for its choices of religious and tourist sites included in these pleasant trips.
Romaian Cultural Society News
