Anjar, Baalbek & Ksara Winery | Small-Group Guided Tour Beirut

5.0 (5 reviews) 8 hours Free cancellation

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Anjar, Baalbek & Ksara Winery | Small-Group Guided Tour Beirut — Photos: the activity supplier, via Viator

Anjar, Baalbek & Ksara Winery | Small-Group Guided Tour Beirut, photo 2 — Photos: the activity supplier, via Viator

About this activity

The Bekaa Valley packs more history into a single valley than most countries manage in their entire territory — and this small-group guided day trip from Beirut proves it. A ghost city abandoned 1,300 years ago. The greatest Roman temples ever built. Roman wine caves beneath Lebanon's oldest winery. Two UNESCO World Heritage Sites and one very good wine tasting — all with a professional guide making sure you actually understand what you are looking at.

Solo traveler? Perfect — small group tours are how you meet people. Budget-conscious? This is the best value Bekaa day trip available from Beirut. History lover? Anjar and Baalbek back to back is the most historically concentrated single day Lebanon offers. Wine curious? Ksara's Roman cave cellars are worth the drive alone. There is genuinely something here for everyone — and a guide who brings it all to life.

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At a glance

Duration: 8 hours
Confirmation: Instant confirmation
Ticket: Mobile or paper ticket accepted
Group: Up to 10 people
People per booking: 1–9
Guide: Arabic, English
Operated by: Beirut Trip

Ages: Adults (0–99 years)

What is included

Included

Included: Hotel pickup and drop-off in Beirut
Included: In-vehicle air conditioning: Air-conditioned vehicle
Included: Professional expert guide

Not included

Not included: Lunch in Baalbek (optional — at own expense)
Not included: Gratuities (optional)

Itinerary

Beirut

Passing by

8:30 AM — Departure from Beirut

Your guide meets you at your Beirut hotel and heads east on the Damascus highway — climbing through the Lebanese mountains as the Bekaa Valley opens dramatically below. First stop is Anjar, about an hour away.
Umayyad Ruins of Aanjar

45 min Admission not included

Anjar — the ghost city nobody puts on their list

Most people visiting Baalbek drive straight past Anjar without knowing what they are missing. Your guide makes sure you do not. The Umayyad ruins of Anjar are the only surviving example of a complete Umayyad palatial city in the entire Levant — built in the early 8th century by Caliph Walid I, the same ruler who commissioned the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, then abandoned just decades later and never reoccupied. Colonnaded streets dividing the city into four quarters, a grand palace with over 40 towers, a mosque and bathhouses — all still standing in the middle of the Bekaa plain. Your guide brings the full story of this extraordinary and overlooked city to life in a way that makes you wonder why it is not on every Lebanon itinerary.
Stop 3

15 min

Stone of the Pregnant Woman — the warm-up act

Before the temples, your guide takes you to the ancient Roman quarry where the Stone of the Pregnant Woman — 21 metres long, 1,000 tonnes, never moved — still lies exactly where it was abandoned 2,000 years ago. Your guide explains the engineering mystery behind it — and why standing next to this unfinished block makes everything you are about to see at the temple complex even more jaw-dropping.
Baalbek Temple

1 h 30 min Admission not included

Baalbek Temple Complex — your guide earns their keep here

Enter the greatest Roman temple complex on earth — and this is where having a guide makes all the difference. The Temple of Jupiter on Trilithon stones each weighing over 800 tonnes. The Temple of Bacchus — larger than the Parthenon, almost entirely intact — with a carved doorway your guide explains in detail that changes how you see the whole building. The Temple of Venus completing a complex that has outlasted every empire that touched it. Without a guide, Baalbek is overwhelming in a good way. With a guide, it becomes one of the most meaningful experiences in Lebanon.
Baalbeck

one hour

Lunch in Baalbek — optional

Local Bekaa Valley mezze and grilled meats in a town that has been feeding travellers for two thousand years. Optional — but after Anjar and Baalbek back to back, you will be hungry and this is a good place to eat.
Chateau Ksara

one hour Admission not included

Chateau Ksara — Roman caves and Lebanese wine

End the day underground — in the best possible way. Chateau Ksara is Lebanon's oldest winery, founded by Jesuit monks in 1857, and the star attraction is 2 kilometres of Roman cave cellars beneath the winery where wine ages at a naturally constant temperature year-round. Your guide walks you through the ancient tunnels — carved by Romans, discovered by Jesuits, now filled with thousands of quietly ageing bottles — before a tasting of Ksara's iconic Cabernet-Syrah blends, crisp Blanc de Blancs, and famous Sunset Rosé. A day that started at a 1,300-year-old ghost city, peaked at the world's greatest Roman temples, and ended in ancient wine caves. The Bekaa really delivers.
Beirut

Passing by

Return to Beirut — approx. 5:30–6:30 PM

Back to Beirut with drop-off at your hotel — completing a day that covered a ghost city, the world's greatest Roman temples, and ancient wine caves with a guide who made every stop make sense.