Sunday morning Rob and I went to Saida (Sidon). We had originally intended to go to Sur (Tyre) as well but since we left at little late at about 9:30 and since we both wanted a short day and it was about an hour from Saida to Sur, we opted not to go. There are some fantastic Roman and Phoenician ruins that I would have liked to have seen but I am not terrible disappointed.
We took a service taxi to Cola to get a minibus and managed to accidently overpay the taxi driver and he of course said nothing. We got a minibus to Saida for 2000LL each. It was completely filled and I was awkwardly the only female in the bus. About 2/3s of the way there everyone has gotten out but 3 of us so the driver honks at another passing minibus for them to take us the rest of the way so he can go back to Beirut and get a full load.
We got off at Saida and walked to the sea to go visit the Sea Castle. It was nice and the ticket was off the kind that I’ve been collecting that’s from the Lebanese tourism bureau and is sort of in a series. The Sea Castle was nice although so far everything has still paled in comparison to Citadel of Raymond Sainte-Gilles. After the Sea Castle we went to find the soap museum.
Saida used to be known, along with Tripoli and Aleppo, for its handmade soap industry and some time back the prominent and local Audi family restored one of the factories and made it into a museum that also still sells the handmade soap. It was very nicely done and although it doesn’t sound like it, a soap museum can be pretty interesting. After the soap museum we tried to find the Castle of St. Louis and Murex Hill. Murex Hill was a Phoenician and Roman era trash heap for Murex shells after they extracted what they needed to make the famous purple dye. Sadly we failed in both of those endeavors although I believe we saw the locked gate of the Castle of St. Louis and the back of the ruins.
We at along the shore near the Sea Castle in a place recommended by the guidebook and somewhat attached to the hotel located there. It was pleasant enough. After lunch we headed back by catching another minibus and then a service taxi from Cola, both without any problems. On the whole I found Saida rather dirty and not very impressive, but this may be because we didn’t really wander off into the souqs and did not try and find the nice quarter.
After getting back Rob and I both went back to our dorms to work on our respective papers but joined up later in the lounge of my dorm to work on our papers and eat some delicious Chinese food, the first time I’ve actually ordered delivery since I got here.
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