Private Beiteddine Palace, Moussa Castle & Deir el Qamar Tour

The Chouf Mountains hide three of Lebanon's most rewarding and contrasting attractions — a 19th-century palace of extraordinary grandeur, a castle built by one man over sixty years as a childhood dream, and a perfectly preserved Ottoman village that was once Lebanon's capital. Beiteddine Palace is one of the finest examples of Arab architecture in the world — grand courtyards, intricate tilework, cedar-wood ceilings, and an underground Byzantine mosaic museum. Next door, Moussa Castle is something else entirely — a full-scale medieval fortress hand-built stone by stone over six decades by one determined Lebanese man, filled with hundreds of life-size wax figures depicting Lebanese history and daily life. And Deir el Qamar — Lebanon's first capital — is a honey-stone village where a 17th-century mosque, a church, and a grand palace share the same cobblestone square.