L'Orient Le Jour | Baalbeck’s golden-era heritage hotel weathers crisis with solar energy
April 2023
Rima Husseini floats in chic platform boots through dozens of quiet rooms in the Palmyra Hotel, which she co-owns with her husband, just across from Baalbeck’s ancient Roman ruins. There are grand high-ceilinged hallways, a bedroom adorned with whimsy curlycue drawings by the French Dadaist poet Jean Cocteau, a kelly-green salon furnished with ancient plush chairs for guests who don’t seem to materialize. Husseini says she picked the green paint herself. She breathlessly straightens white crochet bedspreads in the guest rooms as she goes, and fixes Persian runner carpets warped by time. Read More
Financial Times | Another Lebanon: a journey back in time
October 2021
I became a journalist because of a worry. As far back as I can remember, my grandfather, who is an unmatched raconteur, would sit me down after every one of our Sunday lunches to tell me some of the tales of “his Lebanon”: the Lebanon he once knew and seemed never to have recovered from. I remember that he always insisted on saying “my Beirut, my Lebanon” with a sense of ownership I later discovered existed in most of the Lebanese. I’m not talking about a nationalistic penchant or the eagerness to possess a land per se, but rather a desire – a longing – to protect it, to safeguard something fleeting. Read More
Lebanon Traveler | Mini Guide to Baalbeck
September 2021
Baalbeck is a city in Lebanon that needs no introduction. One of Lebanon’s most popular tourist destinations, its astounding Temple of Bacchus is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts thousands of tourists every year. Read More
Fodor's Travels | Royalty, Artists, and Intelligentsia Stayed in This Hotel Overlooking Forgotten Roman Ruins. After 150 Years, It’s in Danger of Closing
July 2021
The Palmyra once attracted royalty to its ancient playground, but today it faces its biggest challenge yet: staying open.It is a story as old as tourism itself: destinations experience rises and falls in fortune and favor, be they cities, countries, attractions, and even hotels. And it is at one such lone hotel in an untouched corner of the Middle East that we see one of the more dramatic (and recurring!) rise-and-falls of the last hundred years. It is also where our story begins. Read More
ABC News | Lebanon's Palmyra Hotel has never closed in 133 years but coronavirus is an unprecedented peril
July 2020
For over 100 years, a hotel has mirrored Lebanon's changing fortunes like no other. It's now facing a peril unseen in its storied history.Rima Husseini gazes out of a Palmyra Hotel window to the monumental Roman ruins, which have drawn travellers along the ancient tourist trail to the Lebanese town of Baalbek for centuries. The ancient ruins are empty. Read More
CondeNast Traveller | 31 of the world's smartest classic hotels
June 2020
For our latest issue, a special edition with the theme of Under One Sky, we asked our favourite globetrotters to open up their address books to support the one in ten people worldwide who rely on the tourism industry. The idea is to shine a light on businesses big and small – in this case, the world's smartest, classic hotels for a once-in-a-lifetime stay from Paris to Udaipur. Read More
Monocle | Tall Stories 196: Palmyra Hotel Baalbeck
March 2020
We wander the halls of the Palmyra Hotel in the Lebanese city of Baalbek, where the guest book includes names such as Charles de Gaulle and Nina Simone. Listen to the podcast
Wild Frontiers | Palmyra Hotel, Baalbeck
September 2019
Baalbek’s Palmyra Hotel is a time warp with a history almost as rich as the Roman site of Baalbek itself. The hotel was originally established by a Greek businessman in 1874. He recognised the appeal of the stunning ruins, which sit just across the road, long before the site was first excavated in 1884. Since then, the Palmyra Hotel has seen two world wars and a brutal fifteen-year-long civil war. Amazingly though, it has never closed its doors for a single day. Read More
Bambi's SoapBox | Time Hasn't Forgotten The Palmyra
December 2017
Almost 2 years ago, this video was picked up by the local blogs and had its 15 minutes of social media fame before passing the baton to the next flavor of the week. It was the first time I had ever heard of the Palmyra. How did such a magnificent time capsule go unnoticed? Was I the only one who didn’t know Baalbeck had more than Roman pillars, sfee7a, and the summer festival? Even with my insatiable curiosity, I’m also guilty of ignoring what we collectively take for granted but usually of being oblivious to the existence of these treasures altogether. After passing through, I know the title of that video is off. Palmyra isn’t the hotel that time forgot, it’s the hotel that the Lebanese forgot. Time is a permanent tenant there. Read More
Le Figaro | Le Liban en maisons d’hôtes
November 2017
Ce pays n’est pas que fête et paillettes, ou guerre et souffrance: on trouve au-delà de Beyrouth des havres de beauté, où l’hospitalité libanaise commence trouver ses marques. Une autre manière de découvrir le pays des cèdres, des grottes et des ruines romaines. Read More
Al Jazeera | Lebanon’s history in one building: The Palmyra Hotel
July 2017
For more than 140 years, through two world wars and a civil war lasting 15 years, the Palmyra Hotel in Baalbek has never closed its doors for a single day.
Built in 1874 by an Orthodox Greek businessman from Constantinople who recognised the tourist appeal of Baalbek’s spectacular Roman ruins, in its heyday the hotel hosted kings, queens and emperors, as well as writers, artists and world-famous musicians. Read More
Built in 1874 by an Orthodox Greek businessman from Constantinople who recognised the tourist appeal of Baalbek’s spectacular Roman ruins, in its heyday the hotel hosted kings, queens and emperors, as well as writers, artists and world-famous musicians. Read More
Blog Baladi | The Legendary Palmyra Hotel In Baalbeck: Open Since 1874
January 2016
I’ve been to Baalbeck quite a few times but I never had the chance to visit the legendary Palmyra hotel there. The hotel is one of the oldest in Lebanon, if not the oldest, and has never closed, not for one day, since 1874. It was originally built by a Greek businessman back when Baalbeck was a renowned touristic destination and its guests include the likes of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Jean Cocteau, Jazz singers Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, late French president Charles de Gaulle, German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Lebanese icons Fairouz and Sabah. Apparently Albert Einstein stayed at the hotel as well. Read More
Agenda Culturel | Palmyra Hotel: A Historical Treasure
Lebanon is filled with historical landmarks. In Baalbek, there is hidden treasure called the Palmyra Hotel. Perhaps some of you have never heard of it. Palmyra is one of the oldest hotels in the Near East. Older than the Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem (built around the 1930’s), and the Pera Palace in Istanbul, (built in 1892). Read More
Lebanon Untravelled | Palmyra Hotel Baalbeck
Since it was built in 1874, the Hotel Palmyra has never been closed, not for one day.
With windows overlooking the ancient Roman temple ruins of Heliopolis, the hotel has entertained famed and favored visitors to Baalbeck for many an era. As it now stands, guests are seldom, but those who do arrive might have been drawn by the 19th century lore that makes this hotel something of a remnant of colonialism’s history. Read More
With windows overlooking the ancient Roman temple ruins of Heliopolis, the hotel has entertained famed and favored visitors to Baalbeck for many an era. As it now stands, guests are seldom, but those who do arrive might have been drawn by the 19th century lore that makes this hotel something of a remnant of colonialism’s history. Read More
