Tripoli has the best souk in the country and almost no visitors

Tripoli is the second-largest city in Lebanon and receives a fraction of the attention of the first. Some of that is reputation and most of it is habit — people go to Beirut, then south or up, and the north stays a place they have heard about.

The old city is the reason to correct that. It is a working medieval souk rather than a preserved one: khans still being used as khans, hammams, a crusader citadel above it all, and a sweet trade with a genuine claim to being the best in the country.

Eating

Tripoli is a sweets city first and a seafood city second, and both are cheaper than the equivalent anywhere on the Beirut coast. The souk is the place to eat rather than a place to eat before eating somewhere else.