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Beirut
Pass by
9:00 AM — Departure from Beirut
Your driver meets the group at your hotel and heads south along the Mediterranean coastal highway toward Sidon.
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Crusaders Sea Castle
30m · Admission ticket not included
Sidon Sea Castle — Crusader fortress on the water
A 13th-century Crusader fortress built on a small island just off the coast, connected to the shore by a narrow stone causeway with the Mediterranean on both sides. Vaulted halls, rampart views, and the full story of a harbour that Phoenician traders were using 3,000 years before the Crusaders arrived. Your driver covers the complete history of Sidon's waterfront from the castle ramparts.
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Sidon Souks
15m
Sidon Old Souks — a living medieval market
A full hour in stone-vaulted alleyways where spice merchants, goldsmiths, fabric traders, and artisan workshops have operated continuously for centuries — entirely real, entirely unchanged, and entirely unlike the renovated souks of Beirut. Your driver navigates with genuine local knowledge.
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30m · Admission ticket not included
Soap Museum — the only one of its kind in the world
Sidon has been producing olive oil soap for over a thousand years — and this museum, the only one of its kind anywhere in the world, tells the complete story from olive grove to finished bar. Housed in a beautifully restored khan in the old city. A genuinely fascinating and entirely unexpected stop.
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Khan al-Franj
15m
Khan el Franj — the Silk Road caravanserai
Built by Emir Fakhreddine II in the 17th century for European merchants trading along the Silk Road — wide arcaded courtyards, vaulted galleries, carved stone facades. One of the finest Ottoman buildings in Lebanon and a fitting final image of Sidon before heading south.
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Al-Bass Archaeological Site
1h · Admission ticket not included
Al-Bass Archaeological Complex — specialist local guide joins
Arrive in Tyre and meet your specialist local guide — someone who has spent years studying this extraordinary site and who knows its stories at a level that visiting guides cannot match. The Al-Bass complex opens with a triumphal arch still standing after two thousand years, leads along a colonnaded street flanked by ancient sarcophagi, and culminates at the Tyre Hippodrome — one of the largest in the Roman world, seating 20,000 spectators on a 480-metre track. Your local guide places every structure — the starting gates, the turning posts, the necropolis lining the approach road — in its full Roman and Phoenician context. The difference between seeing an impressive site and genuinely understanding one.
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Tyre
1h
Lunch in Tyre — optional
Fresh Lebanese mezze and seafood at a local Tyre restaurant — steps from the Mediterranean, the ancient city as backdrop. Optional and at your own expense. Your driver recommends the best local options.
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15m
Basilica of Our Lady of Mantara — where she waited
Mantara means "the one who waits" in Arabic. Christian tradition holds that the Virgin Mary waited in a cave here while Jesus preached in Sidon below — a sanctuary that has drawn pilgrims for two millennia, revered equally by Christians and Muslims. The Basilica of Our Lady of Mantara stands above the ancient cave. The panoramic views over the southern Lebanese coast from this hilltop are among the finest in Lebanon. A quiet and genuinely moving close to a day that covered 5,000 years of history along the southern coast.
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Beirut
Pass by
Return to Beirut — approx. 5:30–6:30 PM
Drop-off at your Beirut hotel — Sidon's Phoenician-Crusader-Ottoman layers, the Roman world of Tyre with a local expert, and the pilgrimage sanctuary of Maghdouché, covered exclusively in a single private day.
