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(1300m, 43km from Beirut)
Ahead of Faraya, and at the foot of Mount Sannine lies Baskinta
(according to the Syriac Etymology, the abode, the residence, and the
place). This traditional summer resort boasts a magnificent view of
surrounding mountains. Baskinta is also known for the variety of
its fruit and numerous vineyards.
This is the native village of Mikhail Naimeh (1889-1988), one of Lebanon's
greatest thinkers and men of letters, as well as companion to Gibran
Khalil Gibran, and who personified Baskinta's natural scenarios in
most of his writings. It was here in a hut surrounded by extraordinary
rock formations that Naimeh drafted much of his monumental work.
Baskinta carries the ruins of monuments, cemeteries, and
numismatics, pottery remains that date as back as the Phoenician and the
Greek ages. The Greeks knew Baskinta and built in it fantastic palaces of
which enormous stones, pillars stands, and underground passages still
exit. Golden numismatics, coins, jewels that belonged to the Queen Helena
have been found too and they go back in time to the reign of Suljok and
Antokhios the 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd. Bacchus temple in the place known
as Bakish-canal, connotates Bacchus, the god of merriment and wine in
Greek mythology In addition to its ruins, there are lustrous hotels, and
luxurious chalets sought by ski fans.
From Baskinta it is possible to climb to the 2,628-meter summit of
Mount Sannine, starting off at Nabaa Sannine, a village 7 km up the
mountain.
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