Things to Do in Lebanon: City Guides & Audio Tours

The best things to do in Lebanon include exploring ancient cities, Roman and Phoenician heritage, Mediterranean landscapes and mountain country shaped by centuries of changing powers. From the port city of Byblos to the monumental ruins of Baalbek and the layered streets of Beirut, Lebanon offers a remarkable amount of history within a small country. Neywo has free audio guides for 3 cities in Lebanon, covering 45 narrated places in total through 5 walking tours, with narration in 11 languages.

What to see and do in Lebanon

Lebanon’s position between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Peninsula has shaped its history, culture and landscapes. People have lived here for thousands of years, and the country’s cities preserve traces of Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine, Arab Islamic, Crusader, Ottoman and modern history.

Visit Byblos, one of the world’s oldest cities

The port city of Byblos is considered among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Its long history is closely connected with Phoenicia, the maritime civilization that once extended across the Mediterranean.

Neywo’s Byblos guide includes five narrated places. Its highlights include Byblos Castle, the Byblos Fossil Museum, the Byblos Wax Museum and the Cathedral of St. John Mark. Together, these sites introduce the city’s ancient heritage, museums and religious architecture.

Explore the Roman monuments of Baalbek

Baalbek is one of Lebanon’s major historic destinations, known for its monumental remains and layers of religious history. Its heritage reflects the Roman and later Islamic periods that followed the Phoenician era.

The city guide features four narrated places: the Temple of Bacchus, the Baalbek Stones, the Temple of Jupiter and the Umayyad Mosque of Baalbek. The Temple of Bacchus and Temple of Jupiter show the scale of Roman construction, while the Baalbek Stones provide another perspective on the site’s massive masonry. The Umayyad Mosque adds a later chapter to the history of the complex.

Discover Beirut’s many layers

Beirut brings together Lebanon’s history, religious communities and modern urban life. The city has been shaped by the same succession of powers that influenced the country as a whole, while also bearing the marks of the civil war and later Syrian and Israeli military occupations.

Neywo’s Beirut guide includes 36 narrated places. Among its highlights are St. Louis Cathedral, St. Elie and St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Catholic Cathedral, Beirut Castle and the site of the 2020 Beirut explosions. These places offer different ways to understand the capital: its religious communities, historic structures and more recent past.

Follow the country’s Phoenician and imperial history

Lebanon’s history is unusually dense. For centuries, the land belonged to Phoenicia, a maritime civilization whose influence extended across the Mediterranean. Roman and Byzantine rule followed. After the seventh century, a succession of Arab Islamic caliphates governed the region, and Crusader states later appeared before the Ayyubids and Mamluks took control.

In the early sixteenth century, Lebanon became part of the Ottoman Empire and was governed indirectly through local emirs. Ottoman reforms later created the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate as a home for Maronite Christians. After the Ottoman Empire dissolved, France administered the area and established Greater Lebanon. Independence followed in 1943, alongside a confessional political system that assigned power among major religious groups.

This long record of changing governments, communities and borders is visible across the country’s cities and monuments. Visiting Lebanon is therefore not only a matter of seeing individual landmarks; it is also a way to follow the overlapping histories that produced the country’s present-day landscape.

See the contrast between coast and mountains

Lebanon lies on the Mediterranean, with Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south. Its landscape changes quickly from a humid coast to high mountains where winter snow can remain into early summer.

Coastal winters are usually cool and rainy, while summers are hot and humid. At higher elevations, temperatures can fall below freezing and heavy snow is possible. The country has six ski resorts, and its terrain can make it possible to ski in the morning and swim in the Mediterranean Sea in the afternoon.

This contrast is also reflected in the country’s name. Lebanon is linked to an ancient Phoenician root meaning white, apparently referring to its snow-capped peaks. Sea, mountains, cultivated land and cedar country all belong to the same compact horizon.

Look for Lebanon’s cedar forests

Cedar forests once covered large parts of Lebanon and remain a national emblem. Millennia of deforestation have changed the hydrology of Mount Lebanon and affected the regional climate, while only a small number of old cedars survive in pockets of forest.

Conservation efforts now encourage natural regeneration. The cedar is therefore both a symbol of Lebanon and a reminder of the environmental changes that have shaped its mountains over time.

Explore Lebanon with Neywo’s free audio guide

Neywo offers free audio guides for 3 cities in Lebanon: Baalbek, Beirut and Byblos. Across 5 walking tours, the app covers 45 narrated places in total, with narration available in 11 languages.

Download Neywo and explore Lebanon at your own pace. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, so you can walk without a group and without a schedule, listening as the city’s history unfolds around you.