The Kadisha Valley

Francoise, my tour guide, along with Patrick, our driver, pick me up from my hotel for a visit to the Kadisha Valley. We have agreed on an 8am start and I am taken by surprise a little after 7:30am. Luckily I am nearly ready and only need to gather my few things for the day, glad for a punctual start.

We are off for a tour of Baalbek and the Cedars although I expect that Francoise has some other historic delights in store for me and I am proven right.

Shortly after a stop at the Wooden Bakery near Byblos we pull over, just near the Mseilha Dam in Batroun. Out the window and across the field, like something belonging in a Game of Thrones episode is a small 17th Century tower, the Mseilha Fort perched topside of a rock. It is completely isolated and seems like a castle afloat on its own island, except rather than water it is simply suspended mid air.

Thought to have been constructed in 1624, the fort guards the road between Beirut and Tripoli. Hard to imagine why it would have been built here other than for defensive reasons, it is referred to as both a fort and a castle. do come to mind – I’m not sure there are other reasons why you would bother. Apparently renovations done to the site around 2007 mean that you can go in but today I am guessing that our schedule does not allow it so I tuck this snippet of information away in my mind for another time.

Not long afterwards we turn off the northern highway onto the Cheka – Amioun Road, just south of Tripoli for the Kadisha Valley. The Kadisha (Qadisha or Holy Valley) has a whole lot of history.

The Holy Valley along with Nahr Qadisha (holy river) that carved it runs from its source in the mountains near to the Cedars of God Forest to Tripoli on the coast.

Despite being celebrated in the Scriptures, the valley has a long and troubled past. Since early Christianity the Valley has served as a refuge as much for those in search of solitude and quiet reflection as for those fleeing persecution. Jacobites, Armenians, Maronites and Muslims combine with monasteries and churches of various denominations still stand here bearing witness to the area’s complex history.

We stop to look at the St. John (al-sheer) Greek Orthodox Church, complete with caves for hermit habitats in Amioun and I consider the contrast of the old and the new. The caves are hand carved crypts which can be attributed to pagan rituals and rights before being used by Christian hermits. The church likely sits on the site of a pagan temple and the modern billboard below the cliff (al-sheer) advertises one of Lebanon’s summer festivals, bringing me back to the now. I duck out of the car for a snapshot and we are once again on our way.

Another ten minutes along the Amioun – Ehden Road we stop again (near the Public Gardens) to gaze across the valley at the Saydit Amatoura. This monastery (Hamatoura Monastery) in Kousba was where St Jacob began is ascetic life. The harsh life of prayer, fasting and severe self discipline would have been lived in equally harsh conditions, particularly in winter. Although picturesque from a distance, the access here is an almost vertical climb from the bottom of the valley, advisable in summer only before about 10am before the sun falls across the path and it becomes too hot.

The monks here would carry their provisions or use donkeys to shoulder the load. Sensible then that their philosophy is that food grounds you or brings you closer to the earth and thus, eating less enables one to transcend earthly requirements in order to be closer to God.

This philosophy may have begun with St Jacob who, in the late 13th Century, reestablished the monastery after it had been destroyed by the Mamelukes (also Mamluks, an empire of Egyptian origin) and drew their attention such that they tried to convert him to Islam. He refused the attempts at conversion repeatedly and ended up being dragged to Tripoli, tortured over a period of a year or so and eventually beheaded and burned such that he could not receive a proper Christian burial. The church commemorates him on 13 October, the date that he was beheaded.

The scenery continues to change as we climb higher into the mountains. There are many little villages along the way with Friday morning chores underway. Men sit on the back of a truck filled with scaffolding (at a guess), women set tables at cafes, people sip coffee or carry fresh manouche home for breakfast, some smoke and chat outside of a mechanical repair shop filled with spare tires, others set up stalls with fresh vegetables and children run around, enjoying the summer holidays with nothing better to do and no where better to be.

As we pull up a little further on, two young children call out from a balcony “where are you from?”. They seem to be from New Zealand and they invite me for lunch although I politely decline, I have too much to see today to consider their kind invitation. The next sight requires a short walk down into the valley towards the Archaeological Monastery of St. Simon at Bqerqacha (or Bkerkacha).

From here we have a view of the Chapel of Mar Marina across the other side of the valley. St Marina’s father became a monk after his wife died giving birth to his daughter (Marina). She grew up concealing her identity (gender) and continued on to become a monk after her father died. Accused of impregnating a parishioner who was having an affair with her gardener, she was thrown out of the monastery and lived in the mountains, often returning to sit on the monastery steps with the baby boy that she adopted and looked after. On her deathbed she confessed to the high monk that she was a woman and could not have done what she had been accused of and discommunicated for. Later she was canonized and made a saint.

I learn all this sitting, clinging to the cliff face in the so called St. Simon’s monastery, a hermit’s cave on the south side of the Kadisha Valley at Bqerqacha.

The entrance to the cave is concealed behind a bell tower and the (modern) ladder leads to the rock steps where I squeeze through the narrow entry hole, just big enough for one.

Once through the hole there is a steep, narrow and slippery stone staircase of sorts to navigate. Once again a modern(ish) rope addition aids the way making the ascent ever so slightly easier. It feels like a good five minutes before I finally make an entrance into the small room at the top feeling rather pleased with myself.

Once inside the room is narrow and the roof is low. I have to duck as the whole structure clings to the cliffside having been built by enclosing a rocky ledge. I crawl through a door way to another ‘room’, the space bereft of anything much, apart from a small shrine which huddles in a nook in one corner.

If it wasn’t for the serious religious nature and the rather dangerous composition, not to mention access, the whole thing has rather the feel of a hidden cubby house. I try not to look down whilst also trying not to imagine my children running around up here.

An exposed walkway connects onto another such room and a tiny cave, also a shrine of sorts, where we now sit. The hermits that once lived here, perhaps a few at a time, likely sat here contemplating too. As Francoise concludes her story and the silence of the space descends it seems peaceful, the perfect place for quiet reflection and contemplation whilst gazing out over the valley. That is, assuming the hermits didn’t have a fear of heights, quiet reflection must have been rather difficult with the constant feeling of butterflies in your stomach. This, and the fact that the idyllic silence would quickly turn into harsh reality if you were to contemplate spending the night here on the cold rocky floor, let alone in winter with freezing weather, isolation and a lack of provisions to contemplate.

We make our way back up the steep path to the road, the history of the valley, the struggles of the hermits, the sacrifices of the saints and the sins of those pledged to a higher cause throughout the ages: Crusaders and Christians, Maronites and Muslims weighing on me as heavily as the humidity of the morning and the song of the cicadas in the brush.

Good To Know

It is both the location and the stories that are inspiring here. Without a knowledgeable local guide, you could potentially miss both. The sights are not well signposted and the stories are a mix of the study of history and experience.

Would I Return?

Yes. With more time there is so much more to discover about the Kadisha Valley: the history and interior of the 17th century tower; a walk to one or some of the many monasteries and the opportunity to do some hiking in this picturesque valley. Maybe even lunch with a local.