Drifting away from the chaotic gridlock of south Beirut, calmness descends. Orange groves, banana plantations and cattle markets slowly replace army vehicles and sports coupes on the two-hour drive south to Tyre. Bridges are being rebuilt all along the route following the 2006 summer war with Israel, which destroyed most of the transport infrastructure in south and central Lebanon. For the most part though, all signs of conflict have disappeared on the coastal highway which, after Saida, narrows to a country road walled on both sides by fruit farms. Going farther south with more than a little nervous curiosity, Hezbollah flags and effigies of slain members become more visible on roadsides. However, my curiosity to see a city seemingly on the edge of the world and its age-old sites drove me on.
Once an island city, centuries of silt built up on its northern and southern sides have seen Tyre joined to the mainland. Inside the city proper there are few signs of the damage wrought by Israeli jets from four years ago. Far more common are scenes of houses worn down by time and neglect and dusty, crowded streets where fruit and meat are sold and local youths drive around aimlessly blaring Arab pop from their cars. Thankfully, there is more to Tyre.
Tyre's greatness has been well documented. Herodotus, perhaps the best-known traveller in history, wrote that the earliest records of Tyre were from around 2,750BC. According to Greek mythology it was a prince of Tyre, Cadmus, who introduced the alphabet to the Ancient Greeks, while the city is mentioned several times in the Bible. Tyre's Hippodrome, built by the Romans who took control of the city in 64BC, is located within the Al Bass ruins, perhaps Lebanon's greatest collection of Roman columns. Standing in the Hippodrome, 500 metres long and 150 metres wide and today a space filled by nothing other than wind, a sense of abandonment takes over my thoughts. With a sea gale whistling around my ears, I close my eyes, imagining Kirk Douglas-type men racing chariots at full pelt, deciding the bragging rights for Tyre's elite in Roman times.
Tyre was once the scene of great battles. Alexander the Great succeeded in flying his flag over the city in 332BC, but only after a seven-month siege and seeing his army decimated at the hands of wily locals. Saladin, the great Muslim warrior and conqueror of much of the Middle East, tried and failed twice to capture the city. Tyre's merchants during the time of Phoenician supremacy were the wealthiest and most flamboyant of the known world. The city's dyeing mills at Al Bass became famous throughout the Mediterranean for the colour purple. This became Tyre's trademark and the colour of royalty across the ancient world.These days, Al Bass is beautifully lined with Roman columns and contains the ruins of public baths and the houses where the famous purple dye was manufactured before being soaked into cloth and then exported far and wide.
Tyre has had the misfortune of being located in one of the world's major conflict zones, and as war engulfed the region with the establishment of Israel, a 1954 convention in The Hague was enacted to protect sites such as Al Bass. After violence in south Lebanon intensified, in 1979 Unesco declared Tyre a World Heritage Site to further safeguard its priceless and irreplaceable treasures, several of which have been displayed in museums such as the National Museum of Beirut and the British Museum in London.
Towards the end of the 2006 summer war on Lebanon however, Tyre suffered badly. Israel cut the city off from the rest of Lebanon by threatening to bomb all vehicles moving on its streets. Several dozen civilians were killed during the 33-day offensive and some of the city's oldest sites, including the Roman tombs and frescos, were damaged in Israeli air raids. The frescos, depicting Hercules and Pluto, the god of the underworld, are currently being repaired by an Italian mission in Beirut.
My other reason for visiting Tyre is to see its other major archaeological site, El Mina, which extends inland from the eastern-most point of the peninsula and is worth walking through to sample the city's long-gone past. Though difficult to navigate because of a lack of tourist literature and general pointers, my attention is drawn not to imagining what may have taken place here hundreds and thousands of years ago like at the Hippodrome, but rather to a girl and ragged boy standing next to a segment of huge Roman pillar. Underneath, a petrified puppy cowers all alone. To the children, the broken pillar amounted to nothing more than an obstacle in the way of getting at their day's fun and curiosity; the entire site for them, a great big ancient playground on which to pass away their youth. I half expect Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings to break out over my head as I stand there contemplating how, when the children and lonely puppy are long gone, all that will remain to accompany these fallen pillars, mighty samples of the past, is a silent, never-ending sea breeze.
For the non-archaeologically minded, more interesting are the narrow alleyways off the El Mina ruins. A lonely part of the city devoid of working-age men and women, walking through the old town I meet several sexagenarian men puffing on pipes and chatting with their backs against crumbled walls outside whitewashed houses with bright blue window shutters. The men stop puffing their argileh pipes, friendly but surprised to see a tourist, to give me directions to the shore. Overhead, freshly washed clothes blow timelessly in the sea wind.
On the promenade, which stretches from the north of the city right down to the old quarter, the sea view looking south to Israel is, in a calming way, quite spectacular. The beach below is regarded as the best in Lebanon, and is certainly the cleanest south of Beirut. With a stillness in the air that reminds me of a Terence Malik film, this beautiful neighbourhood of Tyre feels more South Pacific than Mediterranean, and worlds away from the violence so long associated with the region.
From walking for several hours through the streets of the old town and those around the Al Bass ruins with an empty stomach, it becomes apparent that decent eateries are not easily found in Tyre's tourist areas. However, stumbling upon Raymond's Seafood and Steakhouse on Rivoly Street in the Christian area is a welcome break from a day of trudging through ancient ruins and shawarma dodging. Raymond Baradie, a 30-something native of Tyre, opened this local favourite 12 years ago. The owner of this cosy restaurant and well-stocked bar has no doubt been influenced by cosmopolitan Beirut and by expatriates returning home with the ending of both the civil war and the two-decade-long occupation by Israel. Delicious dishes of locally-caught fish start from US$10 (Dh36) and are the tavern's speciality. Over a drink, Baradie gives me the low-down on the current state of Tyre, and why, because of the war and an increasingly globalised world, there are no young people around.
With a satisfied stomach, I march out to find a way back to Beirut. An elderly man, perhaps in his 70s and who no doubt has seen much happen to his city, sees I am in need of a taxi. Rising from his plastic chair, he takes me by the hand to wave down a taxi that will take me to Sahat El-Bass. "Only charge him $1, OK?" he warned the driver. The taxi driver, though stopping off at a sandwich bar to collect another passenger, keeps his part of the deal.
What is worth viewing in Tyre can easily be viewed in a day. But staying a little longer and chatting to locals gives an intriguing insight into a part of the world regularly hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. "A lot of locals return from working overseas in the summer to spend time with their families but we don't get a lot of foreign tourists here, to be honest," Baradie tells me. "As you can imagine, after the summer of 2006 tourists were not too interested in coming here; even the people who lived here and fled north took a long time to come back. The place was pretty devastated."
It is unlikely the city will ever regain the prestige and wealth so abundant in its ancient past, nor, in spite of the historical sites, is it a place to come and be awed. Tyre is instead a mystical place where the juxtaposition of the ancient and the empty give a sort of outer world experience. Everything seems like it's standing still, though just 20 kilometres or so from here are the three fractious borders that divide Israel, Lebanon and Syria. But take my advice and forget what you have heard about this part of Lebanon. Give Tyre a go.
