Deir el Qamar

A hillside village in the Chouf mountains that served as Lebanon's capital under successive emirs in the 17th and 18th centuries, leaving a compact village square surrounded by Ottoman-era palaces, a mosque, and a Crusader-derived church in an unusually coherent historic ensemble. The pale limestone buildings are well-maintained and the village square is one of the best-preserved examples of an Ottoman-period Lebanese administrative centre. The surrounding landscape of terraced hillsides descending toward the coast is visible from the upper village streets. The village is within close reach of Beiteddine Palace.