The Cross of All Nations on the Bakish plateau

The most dramatic sight above the village is the "Cross of All Nations" on the highest peak of Qanat Bakish. Standing about 73.8 metres tall and built from roughly 170 tons of iron imported from France, it is described as one of the largest illuminated crosses in the world; at night some 1,800 projectors flood it with light. The setting is the real draw, though: the plateau looks out over a sweeping panorama of mountains and valleys, and the view at sunset is repeatedly singled out by visitors as the reason to make the climb. Local lore links the monument to Saint Helena (Empress Helena, mother of Constantine), whose coins and jewels are said to have been found in the area; the cross commemorates her pilgrimage.↗↗↗↗

You can reach the plateau by road from the village; the short drive up to the cross takes about twenty minutes from the Marj area, and the more rugged stretch on to the Bakish Cedars rewards a 4x4 or an ATV. The heights around Qanat Bakish double as a base for outdoor sport in winter, including skiing, and in summer for hiking toward Mount Sannine.↗↗

A landscape of writers

Baskinta has an outsized place in Lebanese letters. Its most famous son is Mikhail Naimy, the poet, novelist and philosopher behind the spiritual classic The Book of Mirdad, who co-founded the New York-based Pen League with Khalil Gibran. A memorial garden on the edge of town holds his tomb and an imposing sculpture at the end of a tree-lined path, and villagers still point to the hut among the rocks where he drafted much of his work. The trail passes the summer house where he wrote his autobiography beneath an old oak, and onward to Roman inscriptions from the reign of Emperor Hadrian and the grotto associated with the 10th-century Arab patron Sayf al-Dawla.↗↗

Literary Baskinta doesn't stop with Naimy. The Abdallah Ghanem Cultural Center honours the poet-philosopher-journalist born here in 1895, dubbed "the poet of the Nightingale," while the village was home for decades to the writer Suleiman Kettaneh. Nearby Ain el-Qabou holds the family home of the award-winning novelist Amin Maalouf, whose book The Rock of Tanios is set in its countryside. Two walking routes tie these figures together: a nine-kilometre cultural trail through the village's literary landmarks, and the longer Baskinta Literary Trail, a 24-km path linking some 22 sites associated with writers from the region.↗↗↗↗

Pines, rivers and the road up Sannine

Walkers have plenty to choose from. Marj Baskinta is an easy, scenic stroll among tall pine trees and open meadows on the plateau, while the Assi River trail drops into a steep, shaded gorge where the river threads through the valley—an advanced route that guides warn is not suited to young children or large groups. For the serious climb, hikers set off from Nabaa Sannine, a hamlet higher up the mountain, to tackle the 2,628-metre summit of Mount Sannine itself, often starting from the cross, the cedar forest or the Odom Retreat. The village has also grown a keen mountain-biking community, with off-road trails drawing cycling amateurs.↗↗↗

Just beyond the village, the deep, pine-clad valley locals call the Valley of Skulls (Wadi el-Jamejim) frames the approach to Baskinta, and a small planted cedar grove, the "Cedars of Baskinta Forever," adds a quiet touch along the route.↗

Orchards, mouneh and Krikor's oven

Baskinta's terraced slopes are an orchard larder, famed above all for its crisp, slightly tart apples and its cherries, alongside vineyards and the preserved delicacies of Lebanese mouneh. The village celebrates its signature fruit each summer with an annual Apple Festival to promote local produce. For a taste of that tradition, Mymoune—a family-run preserve factory in nearby Ain el-Qabou founded in 1989—offers guided tours of how jams, syrups and other conserves are made.↗↗↗↗

No visit is complete without breakfast at Krikor Furn, the village bakery famed well beyond Baskinta for its fresh manouche. Run for decades by Krikor and his wife Laure out of an old mountain house, it opens around dawn (the oven fires up from roughly 3 am) and fills with a queue of eager regulars—arrive early. For lunch and dinner the village offers rural Lebanese cooking, from the casual Al Nahr to the locally sourced Tawlet Bakish of the Souk el Tayeb network.↗↗↗↗

Twenty churches and a monastery bed

Baskinta is a genuine destination for religious tourism, with more than twenty convents and churches scattered through the village and surrounding hamlets. The oldest is the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, with roots around the 7th century; rebuilt in 1650 after the Mamluk destruction, its three naves long served one parish shared by the Maronite, Melkite and Greek Orthodox communities—a symbol of coexistence. The hilltop Mar Sassine convent, founded around 1729, is beloved for its giant cross, its view and its calm, and travellers can even rent a simple room within the monastery for a night of mountain quiet. Two neighbouring Mar Roukoz churches, the subject of a fond local legend, round out the circuit.↗↗↗

Ancient footprints

The ground beneath the orchards is deep with history. Baskinta and its hills hold ruins, cemeteries and pottery from Phoenician and ancient Greek times; the temple on the Qanat Bakish plateau was originally dedicated to Bacchus, god of wine, fitting for a land of vineyards, and enormous stones, pillars and underground passages survive from Greek-built structures. The village was once the capital of the Syriac Christian state of Marada. A short drive to the north, the grand Roman ruins of Faqra, dedicated to Adonis and Atargatis, sit about 11 km away near Mzaar Kfardebian—easy to pair with a visit to Baskinta.↗↗