There is nowhere quite like the Palmyra Hotel in Baalbek, northern Lebanon.
Standing opposite some of the largest and best-preserved Roman ruins in the world, everyone from Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German emperor, and Albert Einstein to Ella Fitzgerald and the Shah of Iran have stayed there. And, despite everything the war-ravaged country has endured over its 149 years, the Palmyra has never closed for a single day.
Now, with the pandemic fading into memory and Lebanon’s catastrophic economic collapse becoming more of a settled state than a shock new development, demand is booming once again.
“I want the travellers, the adventurers and those who come for the stories,” said the co-owner, Rima El Husseini, an academic who specialises in conflict-resolution, as she glided
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