Beirut! Ancient Phoenician city of the wells (Bir = Wells), rising above a promontory reaching out into the sea, with its back to soaring Mount Lebanon, right in the center of the straight North-South coast of the Eastern Mediterranean.

In the great days of Rome, it was the seat of celebrated school of law, rivaling those of Alexandria and Athens. Since 1920 it has been the capital of Lebanon, with a million inhabitants and an intensely active and thoroughly modern international airport.

Beirut is the seat of the Lebanese Parliament, with 128 deputies, and the fine, spacious Martyrs' Square facing the sea, as well as very old churches and mosques and a valuable archeological museum.

It has first-class hospitals - the American Hospital, Hôtel Dieu, Saint George's and Jettawi. There are very lively shopping centers and bazaars, and in the hinterland there are picturesque villages scattered over the lower slopes of the Lebanese mountain range. Visitors gather to contemplate the Pigeon grotto rising out of the sea, an arched rock marking the Beirut headland.

In Short, Beirut is a city with every kind of tourist, artistic and cultural attraction. See it for yourself!

The Lebanese Parliament Place de l’Étoile (Article January 2009)

The Parliament Building, where the representatives of the people hold their sessions, stands right in the center of ancient Beirut, over remains that date back to the Romans, remains to be more precise of the Faculty or School of Roman Law, the first of its kind in the world.

It was in Lebanon, more than three thousand years ago, that democracy first saw the light, with freedom and the right to express oneself, and with equality between men and women. For it was at Tyre that Dido, Elissar as she is also known, rose in revolt against her brother, wishing to receive her share of the paternal inheritance and finally fleeing Tyre for Carthage, where she founded a commercial empire that was the rival of Rome for several centuries and which produced the brilliant strategist named Hannibal.

Throughout antiquity, was not Lebanon always a center of resistance, of new ideas, of contestation and of dialogue, where advanced theories and concepts of civilization and progress took shape?

What important role did it not play at the time of the Arab Renaissance or “Nahda” in the nineteenth century? Our Parliament was founded after the First World War under the influence of the French, at a square called the Étoile, the Star, facing a clock in its center imitating on a smaller scale that of Paris and the Arc de Triomphe.

Seen from the outside, this national building appears constructed of hewn stone, ochre color and of Renaissance style, with steps rising up to a solemn archway at the entrance where one must mount a few steps more and cross some level stretches in order to reach the hemicycle.

This is a semicircular hall where sit the Speaker, the ministers and the deputies. Here nearly all the Presidents of the Republic have been elected and here also many historic decisions have been taken and decrees and laws proclaimed. Here the President takes the solemn oath of office, in this building in Lebanon which is the one country in the Arab Middle East where democracy reigns in its entirety. This fine monument of the Parliament was restored after the conflict of the late twentieth century and modernized to allow for every function. There are some tiers of seats for the Speaker of Parliament and the ministers of the government, rising semicircles of places for the deputies and places for journalists, representatives of the media and television operators. Smaller rooms around allow for meetings of caucuses party groups.

- Beirut from the sky: >> View Movie << (2001-08-01)
- Beirut, Parliament Square: >> View Movie << (2000-12-01)
- Semicircular Hall of Beirut Parliament from inside: >> View Movie << (2009-04-01)
- Beirut, Parliament Square by Night: >> View Movie << (2000-12-01)
- Beirut, Ryad El Solh Square: >> View Movie << (2004-05-01)