If a picture is worth a thousand words...

...then I wrote about a 1,452,000 word essay over the past two weeks. After being thwarted by crappy internet connections in every city not named Beirut, I've finally been able to upload my pictures from the rest of the journey. Click on the pictures below to see the rest of that particular album.

The Beautiful Dome of the Rock, Islam's third holiest site, located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

The expansive view from the crusader castle at Karak.

A cliff-side temple from the ancient stone city Petra

The Roman amphitheater at Bosra, the only free standing one in the world.

The Syrian city of Malula, one of the world's last remaining communities where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is spoken.

The sprawling Ummaayid Mosque located in Syria's capital city of Damascus. The straight-from-a-fairytale crusader castle known as Krak des Chevaliers.

The ramparts of the medieval Aleppo Citadel, spilling into the modern-day Syrian city of over a million.

The remains of the Temple of Jupiter of Baalbek, Lebanon, the largest Roman temple ever built.

Roman ruins against a Mediterranean backdrop in the Lebanese coastal town of Byblos.

Nestled between the mountains and the sea, Lebanon's capital city of Beirut is a vibrant, modern city, known as the Paris of the Middle East.