Small-Group Tour to Sidon, Tyre and Maghdouche with Lunch and Tickets

The Sidon Sea Castle was built by the crusaders in the thirteenth century on a small island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, as a fortress of the holy land. It is one of the most prominent historical sites in the port city of Sidon, Lebanon. The castle was largely destroyed by the Mamluks in 1291 and was later restored by Fakhr el-Dine Maan II in the early 17th century. Old prints of the fortress show it to be one of great beauty, but little remains of the embellishments that once decorated its ramparts.

Khan al-Franj is one of Sidon’s main attractions. It was built in the beginning of the 17th century by Emir Fakhreddine II to be a hotel for ambassadors and a center for commercial exchange between Lebanon and France. The hotel soon became a center for literature, religion, history, industry and diplomacy. It became a home for culture and civilization. This is a typical khan with a large rectangular courtyard and a central fountain surrounded by covered galleries.

The souk of Sidon is the center of all the commercial activities of retail, as well as craft industry. The souk is a maze of narrow alleyways with small kiosks, shops and cafes, street merchant, butchers, grocers, shoe-makers, tailors and jewelers.

Our Lady of Awaiting, also known as Our Lady of Mantara, is a Melkite Greek Catholic shrine in Maghdouché, Lebanon, discovered on 8 September 1721 by a young shepherd. The shrine consists of a tower crowned with the statue of the Virgin and Child, a cathedral, a cemetery and a sacred cave believed to be the one where the Virgin Mary rested while she waited for Jesus.

Al Bass Archaeological Site is the largest and the best-preserved example of a Roman Hippodrome. The sector of Tyre El Bass, constituting the principal entrance of the town in antique times, comprises the remains of the necropolis, on either side of a wide monumental causeway dominated by a Roman triumphal arch dating from the 2nd century AD. Among the other vestiges are an aqueduct and the hippodrome of the 2nd century, one of the largest of the Roman world. site contain a Necropolis with several hundred well-preserved sarcophagi, an intact Roman road, an aqueduct and a monumental arch.

The Tyre Hippodrome is a UNESCO World Heritage site of the city of Tyre in south Lebanon dating back to the Second century A.D The place is considered to be one of the largest and best preserved Roman hippodromes of its type in the Roman world.

Tyre used to have two harbors: the Sidonian in the north and the Egyptian harbor in the south. Today, the port of Tyre is a busy fisherman's port and the remains of a 750 meter long mole can still be seen, and it is easy to recognize the remains of some ancient buildings in the water.