Ashrafieh, Beirut — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Ashrafieh?

Museums crown the ridge. The Sursock Museum occupies a white Ottoman-era villa above Ashrafieh and shows modern and contemporary art, while the neighbouring Sursock House keeps the aristocratic grain of the same family, and the Mim Museum displays one of the finer private mineral collections in Beirut. Faith carved this slope too.

The Maronite Cathedral of Saint George, the Latin-rite St. Louis Cathedral, and the Saint Elias Greek Catholic Cathedral stand within short reach of each other, and Beit Beirut preserves a bullet-pocked townhouse as a museum of the city's war years.

What is the history of Ashrafieh?

The hill came first. Ashrafieh rose on high ground east of the old core of Beirut, and the great merchant families built their villas along its ridge, among them the Sursocks whose townhouse and museum still crown the slope. War left its mark here.

The district sat close to the dividing line that split Beirut during the long civil war, and Beit Beirut survives from those years as a shell-scarred house turned museum, standing among the cathedrals and the merchant mansions that record the older, gentler chapters of the quarter.

Where is Ashrafieh?

Ashrafieh spreads across one of the higher hills of Beirut, east of the city centre, its ridge streets rising between the Sursock Museum and the National Museum of Beirut.