Tripoli city

I’ve realised I’ve never given any overview pictures of Tripoli itself, so here they are. It’s pretty in the distance when you can’t see the rubbish or smell the summer air, postcard-worthy if you’re a better photographer than me. It’s gorgeous at night, too. The tall buildings are a mix of hotels and business centres. The smaller buildings are housing, I believe subsidised by the government.



In the middle photo, the cluster to the left on the seafront is known as the Upturned Whisky Bottles (I just can't remember the real name right now), the middle building is the Corinthia Hotel, and the building to the right of that is the Al-Fateh tower.


This is a close-up of one of the major landmarks, Burj Al-Fateh tower. In there is a new international post office, ATMs, and suspiciously cheap DVDs and CDs. It used to have a revolving restuarant in the top too, which no longer revolves but does have luxury meals, not that we've tried it yet.

Decorating the bottom is this tulip mural, very pretty and unusual, and note - no graffiti.

And lastly, a close-up of some of the apartment complexes, inner-city living.

The photos were mostly taken coming down Gurgi Rd and the coast road. There’s three roads connecting Janzour to Tripoli: Gargaresh Rd (a main shopping strip) closest to the coast, Gurgi Rd (where the famous bakery is), and the motorway or ring-road, which bypasses the city and you get off and come down part of Gurgi to come into the city proper. The Souk Thalat is at the giant roundabout which marks where Gargaresh and Gurgi meet at the Tripoli end; then you go on to the coast road to get to the Blue Sun office.

At the Janzour end, Gurgi, Gargaresh and the motorway meet at a little roundabout where you sometimes see people sitting selling bunches of flowers and garish clocks in the shade of the underpass – yeah, good place to encourage people to stop, my friends.