12 Unmissable Things to Do in Beirut: From Roman Ruins to Rooftop Arak
Beirut doesn't ease you in. One minute you're staring at 2,000-year-old Roman columns, the next you're three araks deep on a rooftop while the Mediterranean turns gold. The city packs a lot into very little space — you can stand on a Phoenician harbor at noon and be dancing in a converted warehouse by midnight.
The trick is knowing where to point yourself. Here are twelve things worth your time, ranked roughly by how badly you'll regret skipping them.
1. Watch the sun set behind Raouche (Pigeon) Rocks
Start here. These two sea stacks off the western tip of the Corniche are Beirut's postcard, and the postcard happens to be true. Come at golden hour — roughly 6:30 to 7:30PM in summer — when the light hits the limestone and the whole headland glows.
Don't just snap a photo from the railing and leave. Walk down to the rocky platform below Pigeon Rocks (locals call the shore here Dalieh) and have a coffee at one of the cliff cafes. Better still, book a tiny boat from the waterline — around $10 a head — to slip through the natural arch when the water's calm. Sunset is the move; midday glare flattens everything.
2. Build your whole trip around lunch at Tawlet
If you eat one proper meal in Beirut, make it this one. Tawlet in Mar Mikhael runs on a brilliant idea: a different home cook from a different Lebanese village takes the kitchen each weekday and lays out a buffet of whatever their region does best. Tuesday's spread looks nothing like Friday's.
The set lunch runs roughly $35-40 a person and it's all-you-can-eat — kibbeh, stuffed vine leaves, slow-cooked stews, and desserts you didn't know you needed. Go hungry, go around 1PM, and reserve a day ahead because the good tables fill fast. This is the smart spend; skip the glossy tourist mezze joints downtown and put your money here instead.
3. Bar-hop Mar Mikhael and Gemmayzeh
These two neighborhoods are the engine room of Beirut nights. Gemmayzeh's Rue Gouraud is the older strip — narrow, lit-up, lined with bars in century-old buildings. Mar Mikhael, just east, leans younger and louder, with cocktail dens and natural-wine bars stacked along Armenia Street.
Start with a drink at a wine bar around 9PM, eat late, and let the night find its own shape. Things don't really get going until 11. Order an arak — the anise spirit that clouds white when you add water and ice — and sip it the way Lebanese do, slowly, with food in front of you. A round won't run you more than $5-8 a glass at most spots.
4. Take the day trip to Baalbek
This is the one people skip and then kick themselves over. Baalbek, up in the Bekaa Valley about two hours from the city, holds some of the largest and best-preserved Roman temples anywhere on earth. The Temple of Bacchus alone is bigger than the Parthenon and far more intact.
Go with a driver or a guided tour — expect $60-90 for a shared day trip including transport — and leave by 8AM to beat both the heat and the crowds. Entry to the site is around $15. Stand under the six surviving columns of the Temple of Jupiter and the scale will reset your sense of what ancient builders could do. Pair it with a stop at a Bekaa winery on the way back if your tour offers it.
5. Walk the Corniche at dawn
Beirut's seaside promenade stretches for kilometers, and the version you want is the early-morning one. By 7AM the fishermen are already casting lines, old men are doing laps in tracksuits, and vendors are firing up the kaak carts — sesame bread rings dusted with thyme, about a dollar.
Buy one, lean on the railing, and watch the city wake. The afternoon Corniche is hot and crowded; dawn belongs to the people who actually live here, and it's the most honest hour Beirut offers.
6. Go underground at Jeita Grotto
About 30 minutes north of the city sit two of the most staggering limestone caverns you'll ever set foot in. The upper gallery you walk; the lower one you glide through on a small electric boat, past stalactites that took millennia to form — if going underground is your thing, Cappadocia hides whole subterranean cities cut from soft rock. Entry runs around $18 and includes the cable car and little train down to the entrances.
No photos allowed inside (they're strict about it), so phones go in the lockers and you just look. It closes Mondays in low season, so check before you go.
7. Spend an hour at the Beirut National Museum
For a country this layered, the National Museum is your shortcut to making sense of it. Phoenician sarcophagi, Roman mosaics, a gold-leafed collection of figurines pulled from a sacred pit — it's compact enough to do in 60-90 minutes and well-labeled in English. Entry is roughly $5 — and if it leaves you hungry for more of the ancient Near East, the museums of Cairo hold the definitive version of the story.
The gut-punch is in the basement: a film about how the staff entombed the heavy pieces in concrete to save them during the civil war. That's Beirut in one room — beauty, damage, and the stubbornness to protect what matters.
8. Drive up the coast to Byblos (Jbeil)
Byblos claims to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet, and walking its old harbor you'll buy it. The archaeological site — Crusader castle, Phoenician ruins, Roman colonnade, all in one stack — costs about $8 to enter and sits right above a pretty fishing port lined with seafood restaurants.
It's an easy 40-minute drive north. Have grilled fish at a harbor table, wander the restored souk for soap and trinkets, and you've got a full half-day that feels nothing like the capital.
9. Catch the light at Sursock Museum
This white 1912 mansion in Achrafieh was wrecked by the 2020 port explosion and reopened, restored, in 2023 — which makes a visit feel like a small act of solidarity. Inside is modern and contemporary Lebanese art, plus those famous stained-glass windows that throw colored light across the floors. Entry is free. Closed Tuesdays.
10. Stand between a mosque and Roman baths downtown
Downtown Beirut is quieter than it should be, but the core sight is worth ten minutes. The blue-domed Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque towers over Martyrs' Square, and right beside it sits the restored Saint George Maronite Cathedral — Islam and Christianity literally shoulder to shoulder. A short walk away, the excavated Roman Baths sit open to the street, free to wander. Few cities stack their religions and their empires this tightly.
11. Get lost in Hamra
West Beirut's Hamra district is where the city does its everyday business — bookshops, old cinemas, students, and street food. Hit Barbar, the legendary 24-hour spot on Rue Hamra, for shawarma and fresh juice that costs a few dollars and hits at any hour. This is the unglamorous, real Beirut, and it's a useful counterweight to the rooftop scene.
12. End on a rooftop
Close your trip up high. Beirut's rooftop bars — clustered around the city center and the seafront — open in the warm months and run until late. Order an arak or a Lebanese rosé, watch the lights spill down toward the water, and you'll understand why this city refuses to quit.
Pro Tip
Bring cash, and bring it in US dollars. After the lira's collapse, most places now price in fresh dollars, and small bills (ones, fives, tens) save you endless change headaches. For getting around, download Bolt — it's the reliable ride-hailing app here and far easier than haggling with shared-taxi 'service' drivers, though learn the service system too (around $2-3 a hop) for short distances. Grab a local SIM at the airport kiosk on arrival so your maps work the moment you land, and download Beirut offline in Google Maps before you go — coverage gets patchy in the cave country and up in the Bekaa. Tip 10 percent in restaurants if service isn't already on the bill. And don't over-schedule: half of Beirut's magic is the long lunch that turns into the long night.
