The Qadisha Valley

This Sunday Hike took me up north to the Qadisha Valley. Its the final resting place of Khalil Gibran and possibly one of the most beautiful places in Lebanon. I will let the local historians tell the story below...

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Below from the Ministry of Tourism Lebanon:
"At the bottom of this wild steep-sided gorge runs the Qadisha River whose source is in the Qadisha Grotto at the foot of the Cedars. And above the famous Cedar grove stands Qornet es Sawda, Lebanon's highest peak.  The word "Qadisha" comes from the Semitic root meaning "holy" and Wadi Qadisha is the "Holy Valley". Filled with caves and rock shelters inhabited from the third millennium B.C. to the Roman period the
valley is scattered with cave chapels, hermitages and monestaries cut from rock. Since the Early Middle Ages generations of monks, hermits, ascetic and anchorites found asylum here. These religious men, who belonged to the various confessions that grew out of medieval controversies over the nature of Christ, included the Nestorians, Monophysites, Chalcedonians and Monothelites. Even Moslem Sufis were found in this valley. They preyed in many languages: Greek, Arabic, Syriac and Ethiopian."
Saydet Hawqa (Our Lady of Hawqa)
"This little monestary, consisting of a chapel and a few monks cells, was constructed within a shallow cave. Chroniclers date it to around the end of the 13th century. They also associate the monastery with an attack by armed Mamluks against the natural fortress of Aassi Hawqa, located in a cave above the monastery. "