SMELLING THE BREEZES

Smelling the Breezes is an inspiring family adventure, a three-hundred-mile walk down the spine of the Lebanon with four children, two donkeys and Elias, the family's gardener, nursemaid and friend. The journey took them over towering passes, through immense gorges and into the lives of mountain villages and highland herdsmen. The presence of four small but redoubtable blonde children proved a passport at every door, whatever the politics, religion or ethnicity of the household. Smelling the Breezes is a magnificent portrait of Lebanon in all its rich complexity and easy charm: broken castles, hashish smugglers, clan feuds, festivals, forgotten temples, secretive headquarters and hospitable sheikhs.