Flower Bridge

While driving to the north, we stumbled upon this bridge. Initially I thought it was a Roman bridge, but not everything that looks old necessarily is old. The Romans weren’t the only ones that could build bridges; It is an Arab (Ottoman) bridge built in 1806, to cross the Ibrahim river right on the coast.

Obviously in those days most goods were transported by mule or donkey, not even carts, since the bridge is covered in a staircase. In spring, all of Lebanon is covered in yellow Crown Daisies (baisoum). 

While looking for ‘Arab bridges in Lebanon’, it occurred to me that we do not seem to have a database of ‘monuments’ as such. We have one site  where you can find all our Roman temples, but even that one seems to be incomplete, and on top of that, it’s an outside initiative. So although several sites state that this is an Arab built bridge, dating back to 1806, there isn’t really anything that is official. And who can verify that it is actually 1806. If I were to state here that this was a Roman bridge built in 165 AD, it would probably end up in Wikipedia as being true. 

But that is all beside the point. It is a nice bridge.