HTSI’s creative director Rasha Kahil on finding peace around the bustling holiday town
My family is Lebanese but lived abroad because of the civil war, then moved back in 1992, a little after it ended. About 10 years later, my mother bought a plot of land in the then sleepy town of Batroun, along the north Lebanese coast. She had been holding on to a dream, which began when she experienced B&Bs in the UK, to open a guesthouse of her own.
opened in 2013 with just three rooms – there are five now. Since then, guesthouses in Lebanon have multiplied, a lot of them adopting the “beit” moniker, but she effectively started that trend.Now, if I go home to visit family it’s Beirut in winter, when the guesthouse is closed up, but the rest of the time it’s Batroun.
Batroun has become the new place to be despite how debilitating the country’s financial crisis has been. It’s verdant, with lots of Levantine architecture – beautifully restored stone-faced houses with painted shutters and balconies flanked by bougainvillaea flowers in bright reds and pinks. I think people need that escape. When you arrive it’s like nothing’s happened – there are buzzing restaurants, bars and beach clubs. The Lebanese are renowned for their perseverance.
You can also get lunch along what’s called “La Route des Vins” – the whole mountainscape around Batroun is full of wineries that do tastings and a lot of them offer food too. For me the best are
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