Oldest Phoenician city — sea castle, khan souks, and the best hummus in Lebanon
Sidon (Saïda) is Lebanon's third city and one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth — a Phoenician trading port from at least 4000 BCE. The Crusader Sea Castle sits on a tiny island connected to shore by an arched bridge; the old city behind it is a maze of Ottoman-era khans, soap museums, and legendary hummus restaurants. The Arab Fort and the medieval Castle of St. Louis occupy the landward side.
Sidon was among the most powerful Phoenician city-states, rivalling Tyre and famed throughout antiquity for its purple dye, glass, and ivory work. The city was successively conquered by Assyria, Persia (under Cambyses and Artaxerxes III, the latter massacring its population in 351 BCE), Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, Rome, Byzantium, the Umayyads, the Crusaders, Saladin, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans. Each layer left its mark: Phoenician royal tombs were discovered beneath the town in the 19th century, including the Alexander Sarcophagus (now in Istanbul).