This article forms part of a series of publications under MEDUSA project to promote less-known natural and cultural touristic assets in our partner territories Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Puglia (Italy) and Catalonia (Spain).

Enjoy reading and hope to welcome you soon at one of the wonderful places you will get to know here.

Nestled among fruit trees and olive groves in a rugged valley, Brih is one the Shouf region’s many breathtaking villages.

Famous for its unique landscape and biodiversity, this town, fifty-three kilometers away from the Lebanese capital Beirut, is the perfect destination for curious, environmentally-conscious nature lovers who want to wind down, relax, explore the local culture of the Lebanese mountains and their natural beauty.

Brih’s four thousand residents lead simple lives, tirelessly working on the agricultural land in order to manage them sustainably. Like all villagers of the Shouf, they are famous for their hospitality, attachment to their roots and their land, as well as their serenity.

Indeed, the local community has been extremely responsive to the municipality’s sustainability initiatives, sorting garbage at the household level, for example, when the municipality launched sustainable waste management initiatives years ago.

 Landscape of Brih, Shouf, Lebanon

This was crucial to the progress the municipality has made in treating household organic and solid wastes and achieving its goal of turning Brih into a model eco-friendly sustainable village that could serve as an example for other Lebanese villages.

Its nascent agri-tourism industry fits in nicely with that objective and, with the local community’s enthusiastic support, has been growing steadily. The Streeh Guest House allows guests to enjoy a genuine village-like experience. There, visitors are welcomed in a traditional village house where they are offered delicious, traditional home-cooked local dishes made by their host Lamia, who has loved hosting and cooking for her guests for far longer than she has been doing it professionally. From there, they can hike on a nearby trail close to the river, with tracks of varying difficulty for guests to choose from. On their hike, they pick some of the widely varied seasonal wild herbs that the town is brimming with because of its abundance of water springs. After that, they end their day with a picnic by the river.