Architecturally, the city was playing catch up. The evolution of labyrinth souks into Zaha Hadid designed malls epitomised the new order. The civil war put everything on hold for a generation & only recently had much of the antebellum Beirut been razed to the ground.
In Gemmayzeh & Achrafieh, you could buy fresh falafal & decent expressos. Everywhere there was music; hip hop blasting from open windows or folk melodies being picked from acoustic guitars on roof terraces. In the evening, graffiti-decorated bars served Almaza beer & wine from the Bekaa Valley. It was young & loud & covered in classy graffiti. How cities ought to be.
But of course, this is just a superficial skim & clearly beneath the surface the economy was on a knife-edge despite the new faces in government. Corruption was ingrained. Two years on, in a world thrown upside down by Covid-19, Lebanon is falling apart. Rapid inflation has made basic goods unattainable & savings worthless. The police are firing rubber bullets into crowds of protestors & unbelievably, an explosion at the port killed over 200 people. Those bars & cafes I loved in Gemmayzeh faced the blast & lie glass-shattered & empty. 
Before I left Lebanon, I took a bus to Byblos, as pretty a town as any I’ve seen. Steep streets twisted down to the bay & the heat was less of a force than Beirut. From a pebbly beach, I swam in the Autumn sea. I stayed at the Fishing Club in a colourful cabin hacked into the rock face. After the chaos of Beirut, Byblos was gentler & quieter at night. The very stones felt ancient. I bought fossils that were 100 million years old from a time when Lebanon itself was beneath the waves. Byblos was a magical place & framed against current media footage of riots & destruction, almost feels like a dream.
