Aintoura

Aintoura, which means "water source of the mountain" in Syriac, is a very old village inhabited, as tools found in two of its historic grottos witness, since the Stone Age. More recent history shows that Aintoura has been inhabited between 1307 and 1515, and since 1657 when people started living there on a continuous basis.

Main Religious Centers of Attraction: The Convent of the Visitation: Founded in 1746, it was a convent for nuns, which was instituted in 1862, and was the first school for girls in the whole region. May Ziade, a well-known scholar, graduated from this school. The Cemetery of Armenian Orphans: This cemetery, hosted within the walls of Saint- Joseph College in Antoura, is the resting home for more than three hundred Armenian children that had died from typhus during World WarI, after having been lodged in the College. At the time, Lebanon was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, and Saint Joseph College had been morphed into an orphanage, its church into a first aid center and its tower into a minaret. Also, the Turks had proceeded to changing the names of those orphans into Arabic names, while making them follow Islam. (Resource: Wikipedia)