Six days through Lebanon’s compact, layered coast and interior — Beirut’s rebuilt seafront and Gemmayzeh nightlife, an underground river at Jeita Grotto, Byblos’s stacked Phoenician-to-Crusader ruins, Batroun’s 2,000-year-old sea wall and hillside wineries, and Baalbek’s colossal Roman temple complex in the Bekaa Valley — with real guides, boutique hotels, and 2026 prices for every stop.
Day 1Arrival in Beirut & Sunset at the Pigeon Rocks
Touch down on Beirut’s seafront and ease into the city with a sunset walk along its most famous sea cliffs before a Gemmayzeh seafood dinner.
🛬 Airport Transfer — Beirut-Rafic Hariri Int’l Airport to Gemmayzeh
~20 minutes · private transfer, ~$40 USD total
A short coastal run from BEY’s single terminal into Beirut’s restored Ottoman-era Gemmayzeh district, pre-booked through a licensed transfer service rather than hailed curbside.
Civitatis Beirut Transfers · www.civitatis.com/en/beirut/transfers
📸 Sunset Walk — Raouché & the Pigeon Rocks
~1 hour, self-guided · free
Beirut’s twin sea arches rising straight out of the Mediterranean just off the Corniche, best seen from the clifftop walkway as the sun drops behind them and the Corniche fills with evening strollers, fishermen, and manoushe carts.
🍽️ Dinner — Merou, Mar Mikhael
~1.5 hours · ~$35-45 USD / person
A buzzy seafood counter-turned-restaurant in the Mar Mikhael warehouse district plating the day’s catch simply, with char-grilled fish and arak on a street that turns fully nocturnal after 9pm.
Merou · Mar Mikhael, Beirut
🛎️ Overnight — The GEM Boutique Hotel
From $110-130 USD / night, for 2 people
A small design-forward hotel tucked into a restored Gemmayzeh townhouse a few blocks from the Beirut waterfront, with exposed stone and a rooftop terrace over the district’s balconies.
The GEM Boutique Hotel · Gemmayzeh, Beirut
Day 2Jeita’s Underground River, Harissa & Byblos
A full day tracing Mount Lebanon’s limestone spine — an underground river you float through, a cable car over the bay, and a Phoenician port town for the night.
🚐 Full-Day Tour — Jeita Grotto, Harissa & Byblos, with Nakhal Tours & Travel
~8 hours, guided · ~$80 USD / person, incl. transport, entrances & lunch
A licensed guide and driver loop north from Beirut through all three of Mount Lebanon’s signature day-trip stops in one run, with private vehicle pickup from the hotel included.
Nakhal Tours & Travel · www.nakhal.com.lb · +961 1 382 444
🕳️ Jeita Grotto
~1.5 hours, included with tour
A two-level karst cave system north of Beirut, its upper gallery walked on foot past chandelier-like stalactites and its lower grotto crossed by small boat along an underground river — one of the longer such cave systems in the Middle East and a longtime finalist for the New7Wonders of Nature.
🚡 Harissa Teleferique & Our Lady of Lebanon
~45 minutes, included with tour
A cable car climbing from the Jounieh waterfront to the hilltop shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, with the whole curve of Jounieh Bay opening up below the cabin on the way up.
🛎️ Overnight — Aleph Boutique Hotel, Byblos
From $95-115 USD / night, for 2 people
A small stone-walled hotel inside Byblos’s old quarter, an easy walk from both the fishing port and the Crusader castle, with the day’s tour dropping you here instead of back in Beirut.
Aleph Boutique Hotel · Byblos Old Souk
Day 3Byblos’s Phoenician Ruins & the Old Port
A slower day inside one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns on Earth, before the coast road north to Batroun.
🏛️ Byblos Archaeological Site & Crusader Castle
~2 hours, self-guided · ~$8 USD / person entrance
Layered Phoenician, Roman, and Crusader ruins stacked inside one compact site above the harbor — city walls first laid down more than 7,000 years ago, a Roman theater, and a 12th-century castle built from the ruins’ own stone, with views straight down to the fishing boats.
🚶 Byblos Old Souk & Fishing Port
~1.5 hours, self-guided · free (lunch extra)
Stone lanes lined with jewelry stalls and old olive presses lead down to a working harbor ringed by seafood restaurants, where the day’s boats tie up a few feet from the lunch tables.
🚗 Coastal Drive — Byblos to Batroun
~25 minutes · private transfer, ~$30 USD total
A short coast-road run north past citrus groves and banana plantations into Batroun, Lebanon’s oldest known Phoenician city and now its liveliest small beach town.
🛎️ Overnight — Batroun Bahsa Bay
From $100-125 USD / night, for 2 people
A small seafront hotel on Batroun’s old bay, close enough to the Phoenician wall and the old souk to reach both on foot.
Batroun Bahsa Bay · Batroun
Day 4Batroun’s Phoenician Wall & Hillside Wineries
A day split between a 2,000-year-old sea wall and the vineyards climbing the hills just behind it.
🌊 Batroun’s Phoenician Sea Wall & Old Souk
~1.5 hours, self-guided · free
A low stone breakwater the Phoenicians built to tame the surf, still standing in the harbor and now a favorite spot for locals to watch waves break over the top at high tide, with the old souk’s lemonade stands and citrus-soap shops just behind it.
🍇 Wine Tasting — IXSIR Winery
~2 hours, guided · ~$30-35 USD / person, incl. tasting
A striking, partly underground winery built into the hillside above Batroun, with a tasting room looking out over its own terraced vines toward the Mediterranean — one of the newer names driving Lebanon’s wine revival in the Bekaa and the coastal hills alike.
IXSIR Winery · Basbina, Batroun
🍹 Sunset — Chez Maguy Beach Club
~1.5 hours, self-guided · ~$15-20 USD / person (drinks)
A long-running beachfront spot built around natural rock pools that fill and drain with the tide, where Batroun’s crowd gathers for a swim at golden hour and a drink as the sun drops into the sea.
Chez Maguy · Batroun seafront
🛎️ Overnight — Batroun Bahsa Bay
From $100-125 USD / night, for 2 people
A second night on the same stretch of Batroun’s old bay.
Batroun Bahsa Bay · Batroun
Day 5Baalbek’s Roman Temples & the Bekaa Valley
East over the mountains to the Bekaa Valley, for Roman ruins on a scale that outdoes Rome itself, and a stop at one of Lebanon’s oldest wine cellars.
🚐 Full-Day Tour — Baalbek, Anjar & Ksara, with Nakhal Tours & Travel
~9 hours, guided · ~$75 USD / person, incl. transport, entrances & lunch
A long but essential day east across Mount Lebanon into the Bekaa Valley, run with a licensed guide given the site’s protected status — self-driving here isn’t the standard way in.
Nakhal Tours & Travel · www.nakhal.com.lb · +961 1 382 444
🏛️ Baalbek’s Roman Temple Complex
~2.5 hours, included with tour
The largest Roman temple complex ever built, anchored by the Temple of Jupiter’s six surviving columns — among the tallest Roman columns standing anywhere — and the almost completely intact Temple of Bacchus beside it, raised on a platform of stones so massive their quarrying is still debated.
🍷 Ksara Wine Cellars
~1 hour, included with tour
Lebanon’s oldest winery, founded by Jesuit monks in 1857, built around limestone cellars first carved out in Roman times and now stacked floor to ceiling with aging barrels and bottles.
Château Ksara · Zahlé, Bekaa Valley
🛎️ Overnight — The GEM Boutique Hotel, Beirut
From $110-130 USD / night, for 2 people
Back to the same Gemmayzeh townhouse for a last night in the capital.
The GEM Boutique Hotel · Gemmayzeh, Beirut
Day 6Beirut’s National Museum & Departure
One last morning in the capital before the short ride back to the airport.
🏛️ National Museum of Beirut
~1.5 hours, self-guided · ~$6 USD / person
Lebanon’s main archaeological museum, built to hold what Baalbek, Byblos, and Tyre have given up over a century of digging — Phoenician sarcophagi, Roman mosaics, and a basement collection once sealed in concrete to protect it through the civil war.
🚶 Downtown Beirut & Martyrs’ Square
~1 hour, self-guided · free
A walk past the rebuilt Ottoman-French quarter around Néjmé Square and the blue-domed Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, standing beside the shelled-out St. George Cathedral bell tower left as a reminder of the war.
✈️ Airport Transfer — Gemmayzeh to Beirut-Rafic Hariri Int’l Airport
~20 minutes · private transfer, ~$40 USD total
The same short coastal run back out to BEY, timed with a couple of hours’ buffer for check-in.
Civitatis Beirut Transfers · www.civitatis.com/en/beirut/transfers
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