Tripoli’s Tour Guide.

An essence of Tripoli toured with the tourists weekly in her city

From a small group of friends to a group of tourists in a matter of a week

Inspired by her own resilience and strong character, Mira took on the responsibility of being a private tour guide in her city, Tripoli. She started off shyly in 2014 by organizing a tour of the city and was surprised with 25 attendees, most of them being expats and tourists, each wanting to discover the city’s medieval architecture and design. Mira believes that her beloved city is archeological, historic, touristic and active, with potential qualities that can easily put it on any tourist’s list. And being a city that endured clashes, disputes, rulers, destructions, urban growth and development, its people have indeed passed through tough times that called for resilience and coexistence. The people of Tripoli currently love tourists and welcome them from their shops and balconies when Mira tours around with her own group in the city’s narrowest allies and hidden gems. Her tour is usually comprised of stops at Al Mansouri Mosque, one of the famous hammams, the soap khan, the artisans market, the coppersmiths market and the gold market.

Lebanon is a safe country, and Tripoli is a safe city

With ultimate pride, Mira speaks of other local initiative originating from Tripoli that aim at regaining the fancy reputation of the city while increasing touristic footfall to it. The initiatives are cultural, educational and humanitarian, perhaps the media would start covering positive aspects of Tripoli rather than focusing on clashes and acts of terrorism that were temporary.

Mira lived her childhood in Abu Dhabi and then returned to Tripoli

When the Lebanese civil war erupted, Mira’s parents flew to Abu Dhabi where she grew playing in parks, skating, swimming and riding her bicycle. The family returned to the destructed city in 1989, and Mira recalls how different things were. She spent time in Miten and around Zehrieh Area at her grandparents’ house with her cousins, and her love for Tripoli grew by the day. Her love for the city improved her tour guidance, and being the Travel and Tourism graduate that she is, her activities have been extended to weekly tours in Tyre, and she will begin with covering Baalbak very soon! Mira smiles subtly when thinking about the safety in Tripoli, as though that concern has been the first on the minds of everyone who wanted to come by for a visit. “Media should stop hiring young and fresh journalists to cover Middle East issues. Their little knowledge of the area is very superficial and they sometimes write just to show that we have extremism. We don’t, Tripoli is beautiful.” We definitely agree. Tripoli is beautiful. It fights. It lives.