8:30 AM — Departure from Beirut Your professional guide meets you at your Beirut hotel and heads south along the Mediterranean coastal highway toward Sidon — the ancient Phoenician road that once connected the greatest trading cities of the ancient world.

Begin at Sidon's most iconic landmark — a 13th-century Crusader fortress built on a small island just off the coast, connected to the shore by a narrow stone causeway, its towers rising directly from the Mediterranean. Walking through its vaulted halls, your guide recounts the dramatic story of Crusader occupation, Mamluk sieges, and the Phoenician harbour that once made Sidon one of the most powerful trading cities of the ancient world. The sea views from the ramparts are among the finest on the Lebanese coast.

Step into one of Lebanon's most authentically preserved traditional markets — narrow stone-vaulted alleyways where spice merchants, goldsmiths, fabric traders, and artisan workshops have occupied the same spaces for centuries. Unlike the restored souks of Beirut, Sidon's old market is entirely real — alive, trading, and unchanged in its essential character from the Ottoman era. A sensory experience that most visitors remember as one of the highlights of their Lebanon trip.

Visit the world's only museum dedicated to the ancient art of olive oil soap-making — a Sidonian craft practiced continuously for over a thousand years. Housed in a beautifully restored khan within the old city, the museum traces the full journey from olive grove to finished soap cake, with exhibits showing the traditional methods that made Sidon's soap famous across the Mediterranean world and as far as Europe.

End your time in Sidon at the grand 17th-century caravanserai commissioned by Emir Fakhreddine II to accommodate European merchants along the Silk Road — wide arcaded courtyards, vaulted galleries, and carved stone facades that make Khan el Franj one of the finest pieces of Ottoman-era architecture in Lebanon.

Arrive in Tyre and enter one of the most complete and most atmospheric Roman archaeological sites in the entire Mediterranean world. The Al-Bass complex reveals ancient Tyre in extraordinary detail — a monumental triumphal arch marking the entrance to a colonnaded street that once lined the main road into the city, flanked by sarcophagi and tomb monuments from the ancient necropolis. Beyond it, the Tyre Hippodrome — one of the largest ever built in the Roman world, seating up to 20,000 spectators for chariot races on its 480-metre track. Walking the full length of the hippodrome today, past the original starting gates and turning posts, is one of the most immersive Roman experiences in the Middle East. Your guide brings the full story of Phoenician and Roman Tyre to life within this extraordinary landscape of ancient stone.

Lunch in Tyre — included A well-earned lunch at a local Tyre restaurant — fresh Lebanese mezze and seafood served steps from the Mediterranean, with the ancient city as your backdrop. Fully included in your tour price.

The day's final and most spiritually resonant stop — the hilltop village of Maghdouché, where Christian tradition holds that the Virgin Mary waited in a cave while Jesus preached in nearby Sidon. The name Mantara means "the one who waits" in Arabic — and the cave sanctuary here has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries, revered equally by Christians and Muslims across Lebanon and the wider region. The Basilica of Our Lady of Mantara stands above the ancient cave, and the panoramic views from the hilltop over the southern Lebanese coast and the mountains of the interior offer a fittingly serene and beautiful end to a day that began at the edge of the Mediterranean in Sidon.

Return to Beirut — approx. 5:30–6:00 PM North along the coastal highway back to Beirut with drop-off at your hotel — completing a full day through the Phoenician, Crusader, Roman, and sacred landscapes of South Lebanon, with every meal already taken care of.