The Roman ruins: a memory open onto history<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nI loved to begin my day at the archaeological city. The ruins, to me, were not Roman columns or silent stones, but an open memory. I would walk among them slowly, contemplating the ornaments carved on the stones, and marveling at how they had managed to remain a witness to thousands of years without losing their grandeur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What struck me most was that these ruins were not isolated from life. They were part of people’s lives; they pass by them as they pass by any street, children sit in their shade, and small wildflowers sprout among their stones, as if nature wanted to say that life always finds its way, even in the midst of the oldest places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n The old quarter: details kneaded with jasmine and life<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAnd from there, I would let my feet lead me to the old quarter, where I felt that the city reveals its true face. I would rent a bicycle and wander among the narrow stone alleys, and stop at the wooden doors distinguished by their colors, or a balcony flooded with jasmine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-11-768x1024.jpeg\")
A photo showing the alleys of the old quarter in the city of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz”<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nMahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:
\" Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being \"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nFor in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those that are built quietly, step after step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The port of Tyre: the place that throbs with salt and toil<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThen there was the sea, another story that resembles nothing. I loved to swim in it, then to sit for a long time on the shore watching the horizon until the sun set. As for the port, it was the place I always returned to. I would sit there for hours, watching the fishermen as they came back with their boats, untied their nets, and exchanged conversations in a voice in which the smell of salt mingled with the laughter of fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-12-1024x768.jpeg\")
A photo showing the boats moored in the port of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI remember that when I was studying in Italy, I took part in a university competition to write about the most beautiful port. I did not need to think for long that day; I chose the port of Tyre. I did not choose it because it is the most beautiful in photographs, but because it was the most beautiful in my heart. It was, to me, the true heart of the city; the place from which the day begins and to which it ends, and where the sea seems a partner to the people, not merely a beautiful view they look out on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love in Tyre: spaces for emotions and sincerity to breathe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTyre was, to me, a city that gives the heart a reason to love. On its sea I knew my first innocent flutter before a boy with green eyes, of whom nothing remained in memory but the color of his eyes, as if the sea had kept them for itself. Then I grew up, and lived a real love story, and Tyre was always the city that gives love a space to breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not go to it for the sake of a person, but because the city itself made emotions more sincere. In it walking becomes slower, the sunset longer, and words in less need of explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward I visited many cities, among them Venice. It was beautiful as I had imagined it, a city that knows how to captivate the eye and give its visitor an image to keep for a long time. But on every trip I would discover that the cities that remain in the memory are not necessarily the most famous or the most dazzling, and that love is not made by waterways or famous bridges, but by those that give us a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only the cities in which we leave a part of our childhood, or a first wonder, or a first love, turn into cities that dwell in us rather than us dwelling in them. This is why Tyre remained, to me, more beautiful than the cities I have visited. It is the city that gave my heart a reason to love. In it life seems simpler, and love more sincere, as if it is born of the sea, of the stones, and of the alleys that witnessed thousands of stories before ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-13-768x1024.jpeg\")
A photo showing the sunset on the shore of the city of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe dust of war: when fire targets the memory of stones and people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThen the war came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I began to see Tyre being shelled, I felt that the news was no longer talking about a city, but about a part of my memory. In the photos and videos circulating on social media, I saw not just buildings and neighborhoods, but the road I used to walk toward the sea, the old quarter in which I rode my bicycle, the port at which I used to sit until the sunset swallowed the last thread of light, and the doors of the houses that used to greet passersby with their flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could no longer look at the city the way someone who does not know it looks at it. I knew its streets, and I had memorized its details, and so every scene of destruction seemed to erase a part of my own life too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I realized that day that war does not target the stones alone, but the place with all the meaning it carries. It does not only demolish houses, but tries to uproot the memories that lived in them, and to erase the city we take refuge in whenever life becomes too much for us, to replace it with a single image: rubble. As if the shelling is not content with annihilating the place, but seeks to annihilate the memory that gives it life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Cities built in the heart are beyond the reach of wars<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nBut cities that dwell in people are not erased so easily. For Tyre is not the Roman columns alone, nor the port, nor the sea, nor the old quarter. Tyre is the laughter we left in its streets, and the stories we lived in it, and the love that grew on its shore, and the deep sense that there is a city that was, and will remain, the refuge we return to whenever life becomes too much for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For this reason, whenever someone asks me about the most beautiful city I have visited in my life, I do not think of the cities that top travel cards or the covers of tourism magazines. I think of Tyre. I think of the city that embraced my childhood, and witnessed my first wonders, and kept my secrets, and taught me that places, like people, can become part of our souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And perhaps for this reason, whenever I miss it, I do not feel that I am longing for a city only, but for a more beautiful version of myself, one that left something of itself there, on the quay of the port, in an old alley, and on the shore of a sea I still believe knows the names of those who loved it. Perhaps for this reason I do not fear that Tyre will be forgotten. For cities that are built in the heart cannot be demolished by wars, no matter how fierce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n*Share your experience with us<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dear readers, places always carry a part of our souls and shape our identity. Have you ever visited the enchanting city of Tyre? What is the landmark or the most affecting detail that is still lodged in your memory? Share your stories and memories with us in the comments below the blog<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be visited, because they become part of the rhythm of life. We would go down to it without a plan. My mother, my siblings, and I knew that we would come back at the end of the day loaded with something that cannot be put in a bag: the smell of the sea, the salt of the air, and a laugh that stayed caught in one of the alleys. My cousin Tala was the companion of most of my childhood in this city; between the sea, and sitting on the rocks carved by time at the shore, gathering seashells, and spending the day as if summer would never end. It was also a place for the family to gather. There we would come together with my late aunt when she came on her vacation from Kuwait, and the days would turn into long, endless evening gatherings, filled with laughter and conversations until the very end of the night. I still remember my aunt Hanan’s table, which carried a flavor different from everything we had known; dishes with a Bulgarian character, influenced by the years she had lived there, so it brought together two cuisines, exactly as it brought the family together around it. Tyre, in my memory, was not merely a coastal city or an archaeological site. It was a city that enters the heart quietly, without our noticing the moment when that began. In it the sea meets history, and ancient civilizations live side by side with the small caf\u00e9s, the fishermen, and the children running in the alleys. I always felt that time in it does not pass as it passes in other cities; rather, it accumulates, layer upon layer, until it becomes part of the stones, the faces, and the smell of the place. ” The Lebanese city of Tyre is considered one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, and it was inscribed in its entirety on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1984 due to its exceptional historical and archaeological value dating back to the Phoenician and Roman eras ” The Roman ruins: a memory open onto history I loved to begin my day at the archaeological city. The ruins, to me, were not Roman columns or silent stones, but an open memory. I would walk among them slowly, contemplating the ornaments carved on the stones, and marveling at how they had managed to remain a witness to thousands of years without losing their grandeur. What struck me most was that these ruins were not isolated from life. They were part of people’s lives; they pass by them as they pass by any street, children sit in their shade, and small wildflowers sprout among their stones, as if nature wanted to say that life always finds its way, even in the midst of the oldest places. The old quarter: details kneaded with jasmine and life And from there, I would let my feet lead me to the old quarter, where I felt that the city reveals its true face. I would rent a bicycle and wander among the narrow stone alleys, and stop at the wooden doors distinguished by their colors, or a balcony flooded with jasmine. The houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion. I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness. The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz” Mahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me. From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before. One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:” Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being ” Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty For in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face. I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":17200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[422],"class_list":["post-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-silat_wassel-en"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-300x132.jpg",300,132,true],"large":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1024x450.jpg",1024,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1536x675.jpg",1536,675,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"\u0632\u064a\u0646\u0628 \u0646\u0645\u0631","author_link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/author\/zeinab-nemer\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Blog<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The old quarter: details kneaded with jasmine and life<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAnd from there, I would let my feet lead me to the old quarter, where I felt that the city reveals its true face. I would rent a bicycle and wander among the narrow stone alleys, and stop at the wooden doors distinguished by their colors, or a balcony flooded with jasmine.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA photo showing the alleys of the old quarter in the city of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz”<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nMahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:
\" Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being \"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nFor in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those that are built quietly, step after step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The port of Tyre: the place that throbs with salt and toil<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThen there was the sea, another story that resembles nothing. I loved to swim in it, then to sit for a long time on the shore watching the horizon until the sun set. As for the port, it was the place I always returned to. I would sit there for hours, watching the fishermen as they came back with their boats, untied their nets, and exchanged conversations in a voice in which the smell of salt mingled with the laughter of fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA photo showing the boats moored in the port of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI remember that when I was studying in Italy, I took part in a university competition to write about the most beautiful port. I did not need to think for long that day; I chose the port of Tyre. I did not choose it because it is the most beautiful in photographs, but because it was the most beautiful in my heart. It was, to me, the true heart of the city; the place from which the day begins and to which it ends, and where the sea seems a partner to the people, not merely a beautiful view they look out on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love in Tyre: spaces for emotions and sincerity to breathe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTyre was, to me, a city that gives the heart a reason to love. On its sea I knew my first innocent flutter before a boy with green eyes, of whom nothing remained in memory but the color of his eyes, as if the sea had kept them for itself. Then I grew up, and lived a real love story, and Tyre was always the city that gives love a space to breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not go to it for the sake of a person, but because the city itself made emotions more sincere. In it walking becomes slower, the sunset longer, and words in less need of explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward I visited many cities, among them Venice. It was beautiful as I had imagined it, a city that knows how to captivate the eye and give its visitor an image to keep for a long time. But on every trip I would discover that the cities that remain in the memory are not necessarily the most famous or the most dazzling, and that love is not made by waterways or famous bridges, but by those that give us a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only the cities in which we leave a part of our childhood, or a first wonder, or a first love, turn into cities that dwell in us rather than us dwelling in them. This is why Tyre remained, to me, more beautiful than the cities I have visited. It is the city that gave my heart a reason to love. In it life seems simpler, and love more sincere, as if it is born of the sea, of the stones, and of the alleys that witnessed thousands of stories before ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA photo showing the sunset on the shore of the city of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe dust of war: when fire targets the memory of stones and people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThen the war came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I began to see Tyre being shelled, I felt that the news was no longer talking about a city, but about a part of my memory. In the photos and videos circulating on social media, I saw not just buildings and neighborhoods, but the road I used to walk toward the sea, the old quarter in which I rode my bicycle, the port at which I used to sit until the sunset swallowed the last thread of light, and the doors of the houses that used to greet passersby with their flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could no longer look at the city the way someone who does not know it looks at it. I knew its streets, and I had memorized its details, and so every scene of destruction seemed to erase a part of my own life too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I realized that day that war does not target the stones alone, but the place with all the meaning it carries. It does not only demolish houses, but tries to uproot the memories that lived in them, and to erase the city we take refuge in whenever life becomes too much for us, to replace it with a single image: rubble. As if the shelling is not content with annihilating the place, but seeks to annihilate the memory that gives it life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Cities built in the heart are beyond the reach of wars<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nBut cities that dwell in people are not erased so easily. For Tyre is not the Roman columns alone, nor the port, nor the sea, nor the old quarter. Tyre is the laughter we left in its streets, and the stories we lived in it, and the love that grew on its shore, and the deep sense that there is a city that was, and will remain, the refuge we return to whenever life becomes too much for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For this reason, whenever someone asks me about the most beautiful city I have visited in my life, I do not think of the cities that top travel cards or the covers of tourism magazines. I think of Tyre. I think of the city that embraced my childhood, and witnessed my first wonders, and kept my secrets, and taught me that places, like people, can become part of our souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And perhaps for this reason, whenever I miss it, I do not feel that I am longing for a city only, but for a more beautiful version of myself, one that left something of itself there, on the quay of the port, in an old alley, and on the shore of a sea I still believe knows the names of those who loved it. Perhaps for this reason I do not fear that Tyre will be forgotten. For cities that are built in the heart cannot be demolished by wars, no matter how fierce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n*Share your experience with us<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dear readers, places always carry a part of our souls and shape our identity. Have you ever visited the enchanting city of Tyre? What is the landmark or the most affecting detail that is still lodged in your memory? Share your stories and memories with us in the comments below the blog<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be visited, because they become part of the rhythm of life. We would go down to it without a plan. My mother, my siblings, and I knew that we would come back at the end of the day loaded with something that cannot be put in a bag: the smell of the sea, the salt of the air, and a laugh that stayed caught in one of the alleys. My cousin Tala was the companion of most of my childhood in this city; between the sea, and sitting on the rocks carved by time at the shore, gathering seashells, and spending the day as if summer would never end. It was also a place for the family to gather. There we would come together with my late aunt when she came on her vacation from Kuwait, and the days would turn into long, endless evening gatherings, filled with laughter and conversations until the very end of the night. I still remember my aunt Hanan’s table, which carried a flavor different from everything we had known; dishes with a Bulgarian character, influenced by the years she had lived there, so it brought together two cuisines, exactly as it brought the family together around it. Tyre, in my memory, was not merely a coastal city or an archaeological site. It was a city that enters the heart quietly, without our noticing the moment when that began. In it the sea meets history, and ancient civilizations live side by side with the small caf\u00e9s, the fishermen, and the children running in the alleys. I always felt that time in it does not pass as it passes in other cities; rather, it accumulates, layer upon layer, until it becomes part of the stones, the faces, and the smell of the place. ” The Lebanese city of Tyre is considered one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, and it was inscribed in its entirety on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1984 due to its exceptional historical and archaeological value dating back to the Phoenician and Roman eras ” The Roman ruins: a memory open onto history I loved to begin my day at the archaeological city. The ruins, to me, were not Roman columns or silent stones, but an open memory. I would walk among them slowly, contemplating the ornaments carved on the stones, and marveling at how they had managed to remain a witness to thousands of years without losing their grandeur. What struck me most was that these ruins were not isolated from life. They were part of people’s lives; they pass by them as they pass by any street, children sit in their shade, and small wildflowers sprout among their stones, as if nature wanted to say that life always finds its way, even in the midst of the oldest places. The old quarter: details kneaded with jasmine and life And from there, I would let my feet lead me to the old quarter, where I felt that the city reveals its true face. I would rent a bicycle and wander among the narrow stone alleys, and stop at the wooden doors distinguished by their colors, or a balcony flooded with jasmine. The houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion. I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness. The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz” Mahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me. From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before. One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:” Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being ” Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty For in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face. I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":17200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[422],"class_list":["post-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-silat_wassel-en"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-300x132.jpg",300,132,true],"large":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1024x450.jpg",1024,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1536x675.jpg",1536,675,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"\u0632\u064a\u0646\u0628 \u0646\u0645\u0631","author_link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/author\/zeinab-nemer\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Blog<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz”<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nMahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:
\" Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being \"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nFor in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those that are built quietly, step after step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The port of Tyre: the place that throbs with salt and toil<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThen there was the sea, another story that resembles nothing. I loved to swim in it, then to sit for a long time on the shore watching the horizon until the sun set. As for the port, it was the place I always returned to. I would sit there for hours, watching the fishermen as they came back with their boats, untied their nets, and exchanged conversations in a voice in which the smell of salt mingled with the laughter of fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA photo showing the boats moored in the port of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI remember that when I was studying in Italy, I took part in a university competition to write about the most beautiful port. I did not need to think for long that day; I chose the port of Tyre. I did not choose it because it is the most beautiful in photographs, but because it was the most beautiful in my heart. It was, to me, the true heart of the city; the place from which the day begins and to which it ends, and where the sea seems a partner to the people, not merely a beautiful view they look out on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love in Tyre: spaces for emotions and sincerity to breathe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTyre was, to me, a city that gives the heart a reason to love. On its sea I knew my first innocent flutter before a boy with green eyes, of whom nothing remained in memory but the color of his eyes, as if the sea had kept them for itself. Then I grew up, and lived a real love story, and Tyre was always the city that gives love a space to breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not go to it for the sake of a person, but because the city itself made emotions more sincere. In it walking becomes slower, the sunset longer, and words in less need of explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward I visited many cities, among them Venice. It was beautiful as I had imagined it, a city that knows how to captivate the eye and give its visitor an image to keep for a long time. But on every trip I would discover that the cities that remain in the memory are not necessarily the most famous or the most dazzling, and that love is not made by waterways or famous bridges, but by those that give us a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only the cities in which we leave a part of our childhood, or a first wonder, or a first love, turn into cities that dwell in us rather than us dwelling in them. This is why Tyre remained, to me, more beautiful than the cities I have visited. It is the city that gave my heart a reason to love. In it life seems simpler, and love more sincere, as if it is born of the sea, of the stones, and of the alleys that witnessed thousands of stories before ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA photo showing the sunset on the shore of the city of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe dust of war: when fire targets the memory of stones and people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThen the war came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I began to see Tyre being shelled, I felt that the news was no longer talking about a city, but about a part of my memory. In the photos and videos circulating on social media, I saw not just buildings and neighborhoods, but the road I used to walk toward the sea, the old quarter in which I rode my bicycle, the port at which I used to sit until the sunset swallowed the last thread of light, and the doors of the houses that used to greet passersby with their flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could no longer look at the city the way someone who does not know it looks at it. I knew its streets, and I had memorized its details, and so every scene of destruction seemed to erase a part of my own life too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I realized that day that war does not target the stones alone, but the place with all the meaning it carries. It does not only demolish houses, but tries to uproot the memories that lived in them, and to erase the city we take refuge in whenever life becomes too much for us, to replace it with a single image: rubble. As if the shelling is not content with annihilating the place, but seeks to annihilate the memory that gives it life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Cities built in the heart are beyond the reach of wars<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nBut cities that dwell in people are not erased so easily. For Tyre is not the Roman columns alone, nor the port, nor the sea, nor the old quarter. Tyre is the laughter we left in its streets, and the stories we lived in it, and the love that grew on its shore, and the deep sense that there is a city that was, and will remain, the refuge we return to whenever life becomes too much for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For this reason, whenever someone asks me about the most beautiful city I have visited in my life, I do not think of the cities that top travel cards or the covers of tourism magazines. I think of Tyre. I think of the city that embraced my childhood, and witnessed my first wonders, and kept my secrets, and taught me that places, like people, can become part of our souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And perhaps for this reason, whenever I miss it, I do not feel that I am longing for a city only, but for a more beautiful version of myself, one that left something of itself there, on the quay of the port, in an old alley, and on the shore of a sea I still believe knows the names of those who loved it. Perhaps for this reason I do not fear that Tyre will be forgotten. For cities that are built in the heart cannot be demolished by wars, no matter how fierce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n*Share your experience with us<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dear readers, places always carry a part of our souls and shape our identity. Have you ever visited the enchanting city of Tyre? What is the landmark or the most affecting detail that is still lodged in your memory? Share your stories and memories with us in the comments below the blog<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be visited, because they become part of the rhythm of life. We would go down to it without a plan. My mother, my siblings, and I knew that we would come back at the end of the day loaded with something that cannot be put in a bag: the smell of the sea, the salt of the air, and a laugh that stayed caught in one of the alleys. My cousin Tala was the companion of most of my childhood in this city; between the sea, and sitting on the rocks carved by time at the shore, gathering seashells, and spending the day as if summer would never end. It was also a place for the family to gather. There we would come together with my late aunt when she came on her vacation from Kuwait, and the days would turn into long, endless evening gatherings, filled with laughter and conversations until the very end of the night. I still remember my aunt Hanan’s table, which carried a flavor different from everything we had known; dishes with a Bulgarian character, influenced by the years she had lived there, so it brought together two cuisines, exactly as it brought the family together around it. Tyre, in my memory, was not merely a coastal city or an archaeological site. It was a city that enters the heart quietly, without our noticing the moment when that began. In it the sea meets history, and ancient civilizations live side by side with the small caf\u00e9s, the fishermen, and the children running in the alleys. I always felt that time in it does not pass as it passes in other cities; rather, it accumulates, layer upon layer, until it becomes part of the stones, the faces, and the smell of the place. ” The Lebanese city of Tyre is considered one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, and it was inscribed in its entirety on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1984 due to its exceptional historical and archaeological value dating back to the Phoenician and Roman eras ” The Roman ruins: a memory open onto history I loved to begin my day at the archaeological city. The ruins, to me, were not Roman columns or silent stones, but an open memory. I would walk among them slowly, contemplating the ornaments carved on the stones, and marveling at how they had managed to remain a witness to thousands of years without losing their grandeur. What struck me most was that these ruins were not isolated from life. They were part of people’s lives; they pass by them as they pass by any street, children sit in their shade, and small wildflowers sprout among their stones, as if nature wanted to say that life always finds its way, even in the midst of the oldest places. The old quarter: details kneaded with jasmine and life And from there, I would let my feet lead me to the old quarter, where I felt that the city reveals its true face. I would rent a bicycle and wander among the narrow stone alleys, and stop at the wooden doors distinguished by their colors, or a balcony flooded with jasmine. The houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion. I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness. The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz” Mahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me. From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before. One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:” Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being ” Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty For in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face. I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":17200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[422],"class_list":["post-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-silat_wassel-en"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-300x132.jpg",300,132,true],"large":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1024x450.jpg",1024,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1536x675.jpg",1536,675,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"\u0632\u064a\u0646\u0628 \u0646\u0645\u0631","author_link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/author\/zeinab-nemer\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Blog<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\" Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being \"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nFor in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those that are built quietly, step after step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The port of Tyre: the place that throbs with salt and toil<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThen there was the sea, another story that resembles nothing. I loved to swim in it, then to sit for a long time on the shore watching the horizon until the sun set. As for the port, it was the place I always returned to. I would sit there for hours, watching the fishermen as they came back with their boats, untied their nets, and exchanged conversations in a voice in which the smell of salt mingled with the laughter of fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA photo showing the boats moored in the port of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI remember that when I was studying in Italy, I took part in a university competition to write about the most beautiful port. I did not need to think for long that day; I chose the port of Tyre. I did not choose it because it is the most beautiful in photographs, but because it was the most beautiful in my heart. It was, to me, the true heart of the city; the place from which the day begins and to which it ends, and where the sea seems a partner to the people, not merely a beautiful view they look out on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love in Tyre: spaces for emotions and sincerity to breathe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTyre was, to me, a city that gives the heart a reason to love. On its sea I knew my first innocent flutter before a boy with green eyes, of whom nothing remained in memory but the color of his eyes, as if the sea had kept them for itself. Then I grew up, and lived a real love story, and Tyre was always the city that gives love a space to breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not go to it for the sake of a person, but because the city itself made emotions more sincere. In it walking becomes slower, the sunset longer, and words in less need of explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward I visited many cities, among them Venice. It was beautiful as I had imagined it, a city that knows how to captivate the eye and give its visitor an image to keep for a long time. But on every trip I would discover that the cities that remain in the memory are not necessarily the most famous or the most dazzling, and that love is not made by waterways or famous bridges, but by those that give us a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only the cities in which we leave a part of our childhood, or a first wonder, or a first love, turn into cities that dwell in us rather than us dwelling in them. This is why Tyre remained, to me, more beautiful than the cities I have visited. It is the city that gave my heart a reason to love. In it life seems simpler, and love more sincere, as if it is born of the sea, of the stones, and of the alleys that witnessed thousands of stories before ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA photo showing the sunset on the shore of the city of Tyre<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe dust of war: when fire targets the memory of stones and people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThen the war came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I began to see Tyre being shelled, I felt that the news was no longer talking about a city, but about a part of my memory. In the photos and videos circulating on social media, I saw not just buildings and neighborhoods, but the road I used to walk toward the sea, the old quarter in which I rode my bicycle, the port at which I used to sit until the sunset swallowed the last thread of light, and the doors of the houses that used to greet passersby with their flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could no longer look at the city the way someone who does not know it looks at it. I knew its streets, and I had memorized its details, and so every scene of destruction seemed to erase a part of my own life too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I realized that day that war does not target the stones alone, but the place with all the meaning it carries. It does not only demolish houses, but tries to uproot the memories that lived in them, and to erase the city we take refuge in whenever life becomes too much for us, to replace it with a single image: rubble. As if the shelling is not content with annihilating the place, but seeks to annihilate the memory that gives it life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Cities built in the heart are beyond the reach of wars<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nBut cities that dwell in people are not erased so easily. For Tyre is not the Roman columns alone, nor the port, nor the sea, nor the old quarter. Tyre is the laughter we left in its streets, and the stories we lived in it, and the love that grew on its shore, and the deep sense that there is a city that was, and will remain, the refuge we return to whenever life becomes too much for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For this reason, whenever someone asks me about the most beautiful city I have visited in my life, I do not think of the cities that top travel cards or the covers of tourism magazines. I think of Tyre. I think of the city that embraced my childhood, and witnessed my first wonders, and kept my secrets, and taught me that places, like people, can become part of our souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And perhaps for this reason, whenever I miss it, I do not feel that I am longing for a city only, but for a more beautiful version of myself, one that left something of itself there, on the quay of the port, in an old alley, and on the shore of a sea I still believe knows the names of those who loved it. Perhaps for this reason I do not fear that Tyre will be forgotten. For cities that are built in the heart cannot be demolished by wars, no matter how fierce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n*Share your experience with us<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dear readers, places always carry a part of our souls and shape our identity. Have you ever visited the enchanting city of Tyre? What is the landmark or the most affecting detail that is still lodged in your memory? Share your stories and memories with us in the comments below the blog<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be visited, because they become part of the rhythm of life. We would go down to it without a plan. My mother, my siblings, and I knew that we would come back at the end of the day loaded with something that cannot be put in a bag: the smell of the sea, the salt of the air, and a laugh that stayed caught in one of the alleys. My cousin Tala was the companion of most of my childhood in this city; between the sea, and sitting on the rocks carved by time at the shore, gathering seashells, and spending the day as if summer would never end. It was also a place for the family to gather. There we would come together with my late aunt when she came on her vacation from Kuwait, and the days would turn into long, endless evening gatherings, filled with laughter and conversations until the very end of the night. I still remember my aunt Hanan’s table, which carried a flavor different from everything we had known; dishes with a Bulgarian character, influenced by the years she had lived there, so it brought together two cuisines, exactly as it brought the family together around it. Tyre, in my memory, was not merely a coastal city or an archaeological site. It was a city that enters the heart quietly, without our noticing the moment when that began. In it the sea meets history, and ancient civilizations live side by side with the small caf\u00e9s, the fishermen, and the children running in the alleys. I always felt that time in it does not pass as it passes in other cities; rather, it accumulates, layer upon layer, until it becomes part of the stones, the faces, and the smell of the place. ” The Lebanese city of Tyre is considered one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, and it was inscribed in its entirety on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1984 due to its exceptional historical and archaeological value dating back to the Phoenician and Roman eras ” The Roman ruins: a memory open onto history I loved to begin my day at the archaeological city. The ruins, to me, were not Roman columns or silent stones, but an open memory. I would walk among them slowly, contemplating the ornaments carved on the stones, and marveling at how they had managed to remain a witness to thousands of years without losing their grandeur. What struck me most was that these ruins were not isolated from life. They were part of people’s lives; they pass by them as they pass by any street, children sit in their shade, and small wildflowers sprout among their stones, as if nature wanted to say that life always finds its way, even in the midst of the oldest places. The old quarter: details kneaded with jasmine and life And from there, I would let my feet lead me to the old quarter, where I felt that the city reveals its true face. I would rent a bicycle and wander among the narrow stone alleys, and stop at the wooden doors distinguished by their colors, or a balcony flooded with jasmine. The houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion. I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness. The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz” Mahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me. From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before. One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:” Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being ” Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty For in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face. I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":17200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[422],"class_list":["post-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-silat_wassel-en"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-300x132.jpg",300,132,true],"large":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1024x450.jpg",1024,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1536x675.jpg",1536,675,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"\u0632\u064a\u0646\u0628 \u0646\u0645\u0631","author_link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/author\/zeinab-nemer\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Blog<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Then there was the sea, another story that resembles nothing. I loved to swim in it, then to sit for a long time on the shore watching the horizon until the sun set. As for the port, it was the place I always returned to. I would sit there for hours, watching the fishermen as they came back with their boats, untied their nets, and exchanged conversations in a voice in which the smell of salt mingled with the laughter of fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember that when I was studying in Italy, I took part in a university competition to write about the most beautiful port. I did not need to think for long that day; I chose the port of Tyre. I did not choose it because it is the most beautiful in photographs, but because it was the most beautiful in my heart. It was, to me, the true heart of the city; the place from which the day begins and to which it ends, and where the sea seems a partner to the people, not merely a beautiful view they look out on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Love in Tyre: spaces for emotions and sincerity to breathe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tyre was, to me, a city that gives the heart a reason to love. On its sea I knew my first innocent flutter before a boy with green eyes, of whom nothing remained in memory but the color of his eyes, as if the sea had kept them for itself. Then I grew up, and lived a real love story, and Tyre was always the city that gives love a space to breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did not go to it for the sake of a person, but because the city itself made emotions more sincere. In it walking becomes slower, the sunset longer, and words in less need of explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Afterward I visited many cities, among them Venice. It was beautiful as I had imagined it, a city that knows how to captivate the eye and give its visitor an image to keep for a long time. But on every trip I would discover that the cities that remain in the memory are not necessarily the most famous or the most dazzling, and that love is not made by waterways or famous bridges, but by those that give us a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only the cities in which we leave a part of our childhood, or a first wonder, or a first love, turn into cities that dwell in us rather than us dwelling in them. This is why Tyre remained, to me, more beautiful than the cities I have visited. It is the city that gave my heart a reason to love. In it life seems simpler, and love more sincere, as if it is born of the sea, of the stones, and of the alleys that witnessed thousands of stories before ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dust of war: when fire targets the memory of stones and people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the war came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I began to see Tyre being shelled, I felt that the news was no longer talking about a city, but about a part of my memory. In the photos and videos circulating on social media, I saw not just buildings and neighborhoods, but the road I used to walk toward the sea, the old quarter in which I rode my bicycle, the port at which I used to sit until the sunset swallowed the last thread of light, and the doors of the houses that used to greet passersby with their flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I could no longer look at the city the way someone who does not know it looks at it. I knew its streets, and I had memorized its details, and so every scene of destruction seemed to erase a part of my own life too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I realized that day that war does not target the stones alone, but the place with all the meaning it carries. It does not only demolish houses, but tries to uproot the memories that lived in them, and to erase the city we take refuge in whenever life becomes too much for us, to replace it with a single image: rubble. As if the shelling is not content with annihilating the place, but seeks to annihilate the memory that gives it life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But cities that dwell in people are not erased so easily. For Tyre is not the Roman columns alone, nor the port, nor the sea, nor the old quarter. Tyre is the laughter we left in its streets, and the stories we lived in it, and the love that grew on its shore, and the deep sense that there is a city that was, and will remain, the refuge we return to whenever life becomes too much for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For this reason, whenever someone asks me about the most beautiful city I have visited in my life, I do not think of the cities that top travel cards or the covers of tourism magazines. I think of Tyre. I think of the city that embraced my childhood, and witnessed my first wonders, and kept my secrets, and taught me that places, like people, can become part of our souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps for this reason, whenever I miss it, I do not feel that I am longing for a city only, but for a more beautiful version of myself, one that left something of itself there, on the quay of the port, in an old alley, and on the shore of a sea I still believe knows the names of those who loved it. Perhaps for this reason I do not fear that Tyre will be forgotten. For cities that are built in the heart cannot be demolished by wars, no matter how fierce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear readers, places always carry a part of our souls and shape our identity. Have you ever visited the enchanting city of Tyre? What is the landmark or the most affecting detail that is still lodged in your memory? Share your stories and memories with us in the comments below the blog<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be visited, because they become part of the rhythm of life. We would go down to it without a plan. My mother, my siblings, and I knew that we would come back at the end of the day loaded with something that cannot be put in a bag: the smell of the sea, the salt of the air, and a laugh that stayed caught in one of the alleys. My cousin Tala was the companion of most of my childhood in this city; between the sea, and sitting on the rocks carved by time at the shore, gathering seashells, and spending the day as if summer would never end. It was also a place for the family to gather. There we would come together with my late aunt when she came on her vacation from Kuwait, and the days would turn into long, endless evening gatherings, filled with laughter and conversations until the very end of the night. I still remember my aunt Hanan’s table, which carried a flavor different from everything we had known; dishes with a Bulgarian character, influenced by the years she had lived there, so it brought together two cuisines, exactly as it brought the family together around it. Tyre, in my memory, was not merely a coastal city or an archaeological site. It was a city that enters the heart quietly, without our noticing the moment when that began. In it the sea meets history, and ancient civilizations live side by side with the small caf\u00e9s, the fishermen, and the children running in the alleys. I always felt that time in it does not pass as it passes in other cities; rather, it accumulates, layer upon layer, until it becomes part of the stones, the faces, and the smell of the place. ” The Lebanese city of Tyre is considered one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, and it was inscribed in its entirety on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1984 due to its exceptional historical and archaeological value dating back to the Phoenician and Roman eras ” The Roman ruins: a memory open onto history I loved to begin my day at the archaeological city. The ruins, to me, were not Roman columns or silent stones, but an open memory. I would walk among them slowly, contemplating the ornaments carved on the stones, and marveling at how they had managed to remain a witness to thousands of years without losing their grandeur. What struck me most was that these ruins were not isolated from life. They were part of people’s lives; they pass by them as they pass by any street, children sit in their shade, and small wildflowers sprout among their stones, as if nature wanted to say that life always finds its way, even in the midst of the oldest places. The old quarter: details kneaded with jasmine and life And from there, I would let my feet lead me to the old quarter, where I felt that the city reveals its true face. I would rent a bicycle and wander among the narrow stone alleys, and stop at the wooden doors distinguished by their colors, or a balcony flooded with jasmine. The houses looked as if they knew one another. People sit in front of them sipping coffee and exchanging conversations, while from a nearby place loud music or old songs waft out, as if the whole city were celebrating life for no occasion. I loved that paradox: a city thousands of years old, yet it does not seem a captive of its history. A city that knows how to live its present with all lightness. The old souk: a book of the senses and the magic of “Mahfouz” Mahfouz had his own special place in my memory. I would order a fatayel sandwich whenever I passed through the old souk, then walk among the crowd that I always loved, and let the city lead me. From a shop where the smell of fresh fish wafts, to another whose air fills with the smell of shawarma and grilled meat, and between them the gold shops whose storefronts shone under the sun, and the clothing shops from which colors dangle as if they were part of a permanent celebration. Most of the time I would not buy anything; it was enough for me to walk, to watch the people, and to feel that the city lives around me with all its senses. The old souk was, to me, a book I never tire of reading; each time I would find in it a detail I had not seen before. One of the owners of the old gold-jewelry shops in the souk says:” Gold in Tyre is not merely a trade; it is a witness to the joys of this city stretching back decades. People here pass by not only to buy, but to exchange greetings and talk about the details of their day. The crowd here is our pulse and our well-being ” Alissar clinic: lessons in patience and quiet beauty For in this city, I began to discover the world from a different angle. Since my childhood, I would accompany my aunt Hanan to her clinic in the Alissar building, near the Bahr bakeries. I would sit in silence watching her hands as they worked, amazed at how all this calm could create a new smile on someone’s face. I did not understand the profession back then, but I learned something more important; that beauty needs patience, and that small details deserve all this attention. And perhaps for this reason I have remained, to this day, believing that the most valuable things are those<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":17200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[422],"class_list":["post-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-silat_wassel-en"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-300x132.jpg",300,132,true],"large":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1024x450.jpg",1024,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07-1536x675.jpg",1536,675,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/12-07.jpg",2048,900,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"\u0632\u064a\u0646\u0628 \u0646\u0645\u0631","author_link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/author\/zeinab-nemer\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Blog<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Tyre was never a distant city to me. It was the closest city to my village, Aynata, until the road to it seemed an extension of my childhood. There I spent many summers and holidays at the house of my aunt Hanan, and there I learned that some cities need no special occasion to be…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Cities built in the heart are beyond the reach of wars<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
*Share your experience with us<\/h3>\n\n\n\n