Bcharre

The town of Bcharre in the Qadisha Valley. Photo by David Lansing.

Waffa wanted to get out of Beirut. I felt the same. So early Saturday we hired a car to take us to the Cedars of the Lord forest near Bcharré. Bcharré is not far from Beirut as the crow flies (maybe a 110k), but once you leave the coast at Chekka, it is a slow, winding road through the heart of the Qadisha Valley.

Waffa was very excited to be going to Bcharré. She had fond memories of day trips to the Cedars with her family before the Lebanese civil war. “David, it is the most beautiful area you have ever seen,” she told. “You will see.”

I was worried that, since she hadn’t been up to Bcharré in several decades, that it would satisfy neither her memories or my expectations, or that the town would still show the wounds of the war when it was a bastion of Christin resistance against first the Palestinians and then the Syrians. But whatever damage it had suffered seems to have healed with the passage of time.

The grotto of the Virgin Mary in Bcharre.

There are two things Bcharré is known for: It is the birthplace of Khalil Gibran and there is a small museum dedicated to him here, and, not far from the museum, is a small cave with a spring called the Notre Dame de Lourdes Grotto where, legend has it, the Virgin Mary took pity on a Carmelite gardener-monk, who had to carry water up to the monastery each day to water his vegetable patch, so he made a spring appear in the cave.

Both Waffa and I were more interested in seeing the miracle spring in the grotto than the Gibran museum. But, truthfully, there was little to see—just a few toy-like statues, a few candles, and a couple of faded bouquets. Still, something about the scene moved Waffa deeply. Perhaps remembering visits here as a child. We stayed for 10 or 15 minutes before returning to the car.