The other side of Danniyeh

On our second day in Danniyeh, we headed towards Sfireh temple. After mazing through a tight unmaintained road, we reached the temple.

We were impressed at the temple's size, considering it's not a known one. In fact it's the second largest temple in Lebanon after Baalbeck.

The snowy mountains acted as a beautiful backdrop to these old, forgotten roman ruins.

Next to the temple, we climbed on what seemed like a roman staircase. After about a hundred steps, the village appeared and the temple reined.

Climbing further up on the stairs, we were astounded at a view that stretched from Danniyeh, all the way through Akkar, and even further until Tartous city in Syria. All this while surrounded with nature and more roman ruins.

In this area, moss dominated, so I hooked up my macro lens to explore the moss up close.

On the way down, we bumped into yet another old structure. Three kids were there, and they told us their story about fleeing from Syria and ending up in Danniyeh.

Our day was just starting. After contemplating the temple, we headed towards Lazzab Danniyeh natural reserve.

Al-Nabaa trail is one of many trails in the reserve, and it's such a delight at this time of year.

The trail mazes through grass, trees, and in the distance mountains covered with snow.

I hunted for the patterns of grass emerging with soil, and the snow topping on one side of the trail.

During the hike, many scenes were essentially a mirror of one hill side to the next, except one of the sides was covered with snow.

Towards the end of our trail, Hachem climbed his way through rocks to reach a point that overlooked Wady Jhannam (Hell's Valley).

As we hiked back, the clouds played with different densities, throwing a light show for us visitors.