Niamh Kelly is from Galway and has been living in Beirut, Lebanon, since August 2016. She is a professor of linguistics in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut
Where is the first place you always bring people to when they visit Beirut?
One of the best things about this city is the food. I take people to a local street vendor for man’ousheh (man-OO-shay), a flat dough topped with cheese and thyme. Delicious!
The top three things to do there, that don't cost money, are . . .
A stroll on the Corniche, or promenade, gives a beautiful view of the sea and also a taste of family life in Beirut, especially after sunset, when people bring their chairs and sit out smoking shisha and socialising. It is lovely to watch the sunset over Pigeon Rock, a rock formation in the sea just off the Corniche.
A swim in the Mediterranean. (Although it’s cleaner the further you go from the city.)
The Al-Amin mosque downtown.While it is a more modern mosque than many, the Al-Amin mosque caters well to tourists and gives an insight into modern Islam. The enormous chandeliers, magnificent dome and impressive calligraphy are really worth seeing.
Where do you recommend for a great meal that gives a flavour of Beirut?
Mezyan is a popular restaurant in the Hamra area of Beirut. It has excellent Lebanese food (hummus, fattouche, cheese rolls, halloumi, tabbouleh, moutabbal, spicy potato, etc) and you find a mixture of locals and foreigners, which to me is really representative of Beirut as a city. Most nights there is also live music.
Where is the best place to get a sense of Beirut’s place in history?
A lot of the experience of history in Lebanon is outside Beirut, such as Byblos, Tyre, Sidon and Baalbek, where you find Roman ruins on top of Greek ruins on top of Phoenician ruins. In the National Museum in Beirut, though, you can see artefacts from these locations, as well as a collection of amazing Phoenician sarcophagi. Many objects in the museum had to be hidden or cased in cement during the civil war, for their protection.
More recent history is seen all around Beirut, with many buildings still exhibiting bullet holes and shell marks from the civil war.
What should visitors save room in their suitcase for after a visit to Beirut?
Definitely Lebanese wine! The famous ones here are Ksara, Kefraya, Domaine des Tourelles and (my personal favourite) Ixsir.
