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| The Lebanese capital is fast becoming one of the most exciting and welcoming cities on Earth, says Ian Henderson.�By Ian Henderson -Out of my Beirut hotel window the jumble of history is everywhere. A ruined Ottoman fort and an exquisite Maronite chapel are immediately outside. Concrete blocks from the infamous Green Line which used to divide the city are scattered among fallen Roman columns. On the skyline, mosques and churches ? there are around 18 official religions in Lebanon ? frame the skeleton of the old Holiday Inn, a favourite target for anyone with a rocket launcher during the civil war which ended 11 years ago.�When friends knew I was going to Beirut, the reaction was split between those who see it as the most thrilling place to be right now ? the Next Big Thing; and those who haven't got past seeing it as a war zone where well-meaning travellers end up chained to radiators. Both have a point. Style pundits are noisily buying up apartments and rightly singing the praises of Lebanese musicians and designers while Hizbollah and Israel's jets still fight it out around them. The Green Line is rapidly being built over in the shiny new Downtown district, and it's often hard to tell which is a shelled building and which is a construction site.�People I spoke to in Beirut are astonishingly matter of fact about Lebanon's recent past, telling stories of homes and lives destroyed; yet at the same time they are insistent that the world should look at Beirut not through the eyes of the American writer P J O'Rourke (it featured in his book, Holidays in Hell) but as a hopeful, optimistic and thriving place that is fast reinventing itself.�The tiny Maronite chapel is just in front of the huge new Blue Mosque, and there's a perfectly restored Orthodox church next to a Catholic cathedral. Perhaps surprisingly, given recent tensions, the synagogue is being restored too. And all these are within yards of each other, every one getting the same attention from the stonemasons and painters, and all in streets where you might find a Ferrari dealer next to a funky bar or a sharp designer next to a flat bread stall.�Some serious money is coming into Beirut. Sleek steel and glass buildings are rising around Downtown, some people have enough money to risk their Porsches among the beaten-up Mercedes taxis that veer honking across the streets (the horn being preferred to wing mirrors), hoardings around building sites along the Corniche proudly trumpet the return of Beirut's glamorous Sixties heyday with pictures of carefree film stars and Riva speedboats.�The hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray's successes with One Aldwych in London and Carlisle Bay in Antigua suggest he knows an opportunity when he sees one. His latest venture, Le Gray, is one of Beirut's newest and chicest hotels. Gray talks about the "kindness industry" and its positive effects for Beirut and Lebanon, though he's far from blind to the risks. We sat in the comfortable Cigar Bar before dinner and watched the smart young Lebanese mixing with the international visitors ? they aren't defined by the conflicts of the past.�Next day on the waterfront we met one of them, Kamal Mouzawak, who calls his brand of entrepreneurialism "gastroeconomics" (motto, make food not war). Believing that in a world of increasing global sameness people and cultures are defined most closely by their culinary heritage, he encourages real farmers' markets where the actual producers (rather than resellers) come in from the countryside with fresh vegetables, preserves, fruits and natural remedies.�He has also opened the wonderful Tawlet caf�, where each day a different cook will compose a menu from fresh local ingredients in airy surroundings of white tiles, wooden shelves, clever recycled lighting and fresh flowers. It's far beyond the familiar baba ganoush and shawarma street food ? from the daunting raw liver and lamb (eaten with a pinch of salt and paprika) through to freekeh (roasted green wheat) and delicious ricotta, coal-tasting Armenian basturma (dried meat cured with spices) and 961 beer.�A stroll past the beach clubs of the Corniche or an evening in the bars and restaurants of Gemmayze reveal more and more people creating the buzz and excitement of a new Beirut. Coffee shops and ice-cream parlours, sports bars and music venues seem to be opening daily among the elegant Parisian-style buildings. And if you're brave enough to tackle the crazy driving on the roads towards Damascus and the Bekaa Valley, you can find more evidence of people building a new economy from the ruins of the old.�Sami and Ramzi Ghosn's El Massaya winery is a good example. Deep in Hizbollah territory (you can tell by the yellow and black flags flying by the roadblocks ... Source: http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/PoliticalNews/en-US/Beirut-mt-396394.htm Madagascar Electronic music Wildlife Work & careers Cobham Motoring 
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