The eternal magic of Beirut

The New York Times

THE DAY I ARRIVED in Beirut I was collected at my hotel by Huda Baroudi, a cheerful woman who had offered to show me around. It was a lazy Sunday, grim and gray, and I was jet-lagged. But her eyes were shining and she was eager to take me to the Bechara el-Khoury Mansion, a 19th-¬century villa that long ago — before it had been abandoned, pillaged and finally shelled during the civil war — was one of Beirut’s grand residences.

From: The New York Times
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