8:30 AM — Departure from Beirut Your guide meets the group at your hotel and heads east on the Damascus highway. With a maximum of seven people, the briefing is quick and personal — everyone knows the plan before the first stop.

Anjar — the only surviving Umayyad palatial city in the Levant Built in the early 8th century by Caliph Walid I and abandoned within decades — colonnaded streets, a grand palace with over 40 towers, a mosque, and bathhouses still standing in the Bekaa plain. Most visitors to Lebanon miss this entirely. With a group of seven, your guide can take the time to walk the full site properly and answer the questions that always arise here — about Umayyad city-planning, the speed of construction, and why the city was abandoned so quickly after it was built.

Stone of the Pregnant Woman — setting the scale A 1,000-tonne limestone block, 21 metres long, cut 2,000 years ago and never moved. Still lying in the quarry exactly where it was abandoned. Your guide explains the engineering logic — and why understanding this block makes what you are about to see at the temples genuinely comprehensible rather than simply overwhelming.

Baalbek Temple Complex — the greatest Roman temples ever built The Temple of Jupiter on Trilithon stones each weighing over 800 tonnes. The Temple of Bacchus — larger than the Parthenon, almost entirely intact, the best-preserved Roman temple in the world. The Temple of Venus completing a complex that took three centuries to construct. With seven people, your guide can move at the group's pace — spending more time at the structures that generate the most questions and adjusting the narrative to match the group's interests, whether architectural, historical, or religious.

Lunch in Baalbek or Zahle — included Lebanese mezze and grilled meats — either in Baalbek or at a riverside restaurant in Zahle, Lebanon's celebrated food capital, depending on the group's preference. With seven people the decision is easy and the table is the right size. Fully included.

Chateau Ksara — Roman caves, Lebanese wine, founded 1857 Lebanon's oldest winery — founded by Jesuit monks in 1857 — with 2 kilometres of Roman cave cellars where wine ages at a naturally constant temperature. The cave tour connects directly to the Roman history of the morning — the same civilisation, the same valley, a different kind of legacy. With a group of seven, the tasting moves at the group's pace — your guide frames the wines within the Bekaa Valley's 6,000-year winemaking history throughout.

Return to Beirut — approx. 6:00–7:00 PM Drop-off at your Beirut hotel — an Umayyad ghost city, the world's greatest Roman temples, and 2 kilometres of ancient wine caves. Same itinerary as the small-group version. More attention at every stop