More has changed in Lebanese villages during the last 50 years than it had for centuries before that. Yet the villages have not entirely lost their spirit, their ways or their architecture.
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Above: The village of Baskinta seen from a distance is a typical vista.
Right: A traditional house in the same village.
The Lebanese house owes its red tile roof to Tuscan villas, its arcades to Islamic art, and its walls of thick stone to a local tradition as old as architecture itself.
Right: Deir el Qamar (see Historical beauties) has very typical sinuous streets paved with stone that climb up and down the entire village off the main street.
Down to the south, another world: in a village recently freed from 20 years of Israeli occupation, children play in abandoned battle tanks.
Above: Shepherds are no rare sight in the mountains or even sometimes in the city, but goatherders are even more common, such as this one at the Chasm of Laqlouq. Goats are better adapted to the mountain and climate than sheep are.
Above: A very old house in Acoura.
Right: Scenes of village life – relaxing on the patio, hanging the laundry – where you can see the typical typology of peasant homes, square with a grapevine above the entrance.
Above: field in Bikfaya. Right: Snow over Dlebta.
The terrasses (tilal) are a characteristic feature of the Lebanese mountains, devised by our ancestors to make the most out of the slopy terrain that would otherwise not permit the planting of trees. Often terraces used today were first built in Antiquity.
