Douma

Douma is built in a horseshoe around the head of a valley at about a thousand metres, and its houses are of local yellow sandstone with red tile roofs, put up mostly between 1881 and 1914, much of it paid for by villagers who had emigrated to the Americas. Almost nothing modern has been allowed to break the line, so the whole arc reads as one composition. A souk of vaulted shops runs through the centre and an old cemetery sits on the slope opposite.

History

People have lived here since ancient times: a sarcophagus in the square bears a Greek inscription for Castor, who died in 317 AD. The village was almost empty until the 16th century, when the Christian Maalouf and Chalhoub families founded the modern village, and most of its houses were built between 1881 and 1914 with money from emigrants in Brazil, Argentina and the United States (Wikipedia, Douma, Lebanon).

What you'll find

• The horseshoe - the village curving around the valley head in a single arc.
• The sandstone houses - nineteenth-century buildings with red tile roofs.
• The old souk - vaulted shop fronts along the central street.
• The valley - terraced slopes falling away below the village.

When to go

April to November is the comfortable season, with autumn the best for colour. Summer weekends bring visitors from the coast. Winter is cold and quiet with snow possible.

Before you go

There is little to do beyond walk and look; the village has few facilities. Some houses are empty and deteriorating. The road up from the coast is winding and slow.

Nearby

Batroun is west on the coast, and the Tannourine valley is east.

Key facts