Outside Rome, Lebanon holds the greatest slice of the historic Roman Empire, or so says our tour guide Waleed as we lose ourselves in Baalbek, the Arab nation’s most impressive ancient site. He is perhaps not wrong.

I have been to many historical Roman Empire sites in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa but never came across anything like what I encountered in Baalbek. The scale and extravaganza of this sprawling complex of temples dedicated mainly to pagan gods Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus simply blow the mind.