Beirut

Beirut has a roguish charm, you fall for it in the way you would a bad boy with a winning smile.

I have spent the whole day walking, watching the landscape change from district to district. The air is thick with the sweet smoke of shisha, occasionally giving way to strong coffee. The roads are packed with cars speeding to a halt, driving willy-nilly, horns honking incessantly. They range from swanky soft-tops to battered ancient taxis with bumpers tied on with yellow nylon string and rear light covers sellotaped on. Buses are scarred with lengthy scratches, testament to their cornering skills.

Downtown buildings rise gleaming over the wastegrounds and crumbling colonial-style houses, some with greenery overtaking them, sprouting from their balconies, many riddled with bullet holes. I passed the Holiday Inn building, a high rise husk, monument to the civil war in which it found itself, soon after opening, to be taken as a prime sniper position. It looms darkly behind the very swanky new Intercontinental Hotel, epitomising the mixture of destruction and regeneration that is Beirut. There are some beautiful old buildings, decoratively stuccoed (if that's the correct architectural term), coloured shutters hanging by the windows. But the majority of these are derelict or, at best, decrepit. Area by area, the state of buildings and the general vibe changes, making a prolonged walk quite fascinating. Around Le Place d'etoile all the streets are roadblocked so have become a calm pedestrian zone. Nearby stands the magnificent Mohammed al-Amin mosque, it's blue dome gleaming in the sun between four minarets as the bells of its neighbour, St George's cathedral, chimed in midday. On every street leading to the central 'place' cafes spill out onto pavements, offering dozens of nearly identical options for sipping a coffee or fresh lemonade and watching the world go by. Well, a very small slice of world - the area was hardly busy on this Monday lunchtime. I settled for a place which offered 'crap salad' on its menu.

By the late afternoon, having strolled past the open-air ruins of a roman bath house, the modern downtown area and atmospheric Gemmayzeh and had a haircut on the way back, I was happily walking into the sunset along the corniche. Young men were swimming off the rocks, older men were fishing and the views stretched past the docks, over the sea to the hills on the other side of the bay. I finished the day with a mint lemonade in a cafe down by the water with the added bonus of four middle aged arab ladies being soaked by a huge wave while they sucked on their shisha and sipped on the coffees. What tickled me was that they found it much more amusing than all those who witnessed it - worried waiters and concerned old men. In fact, women here, despite the inequalities they face, seem to live much more freely than in Qatar, where they would never have been sitting out smoking shisha in the first place. But it's not just the women - Beirut is a laid-back place. A man I was talking to at the airport while waiting for baggage said it was lawless. It is, but not in a threatening or scary way, just in a happy-go-lucky way. You see it in the way people cross the road, strike up inane but ranting conversations on the corniche (what was that about?), or cruise through red lights. People are friendly and it feels safe and welcoming. Maybe more rakish than roguish. I like this place, even though I've noticed that not all lebanese men are as dashing as yesterday had led me to believe. Still not complaining though!