Rashaya al-Wadi or Rachaya el-Wadi  is an attractive little town seated on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. It lies in the South Beqaa 85 kilometres from Beirut, ensconced in the northern side of the valley known as Wadi et-Taim, from where there flow a number of water courses that feed the river Jordan.

1- Rashaya Citadel of Independence: In 1943 the members of the new Lebanese Government, President Beshara el-Khoury himself, the Speaker of Parliament Adel Osseyran, and ministers Camille Shamoun, Abdel-Hamid Karameh and Selim Takla, were imprisoned in the citadel of Rashaya. The latter quickly disavowed the Commissioner’s action, so the prisoners left the citadel of Rashaya head high to declare the Independence of the Lebanese Republic on November 22nd.

2- Jabal el Cheick summit: Rachaya stands at an altitude of 1,360 metres, half way up the famous mountain Jabal el Cheick or Jabal Haramoun whose summit rises to 2,814 metres above sea level and to be exact to 3,300 metres above the Beqaa-Ghor depression, which makes it the second highest mountain in Lebanon.

3- Famous stove of Rashaya

4-Traditional crafts such as silver and jewellery

5- Tree of wishes is a 400 years oak tree also known as Em Charateet tree, where worshipers hang a lace of their clothes on the tree branches and make a wish.

6- Rashaya el Wadi offers its visitors a delightful natural setting, with its high plateau dominating the valley, the terraced gardens, thousand red-brick houses, and its main street once paved in stone, now known as the “souq” (market), leading up to the citadel.

7- Churches of Rashaya el Wadi: there are four very old churches, two Greek Orthodox and one each for the Greek Catholics and the Syriacs

8- Drink mate: Mate is traditionally drunk in a particular social setting, such as family gatherings or with friends. The same gourd  and straw (bomba/bombilla) are used by everyone drinking. One person  assumes the task of server.

9- Rashaya el Wadi had various religious communities which had lived peacefully together, Druze, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics and Syriacs.

10- Walk where Jesus walked: Under the title of “religious tourism,” the Rashaya municipality organized every year its annual procession to Mount Hermon on the occasion of Transfiguration Day celebrated on August 6. About a thousand people coming from several Lebanese regions took part in the seven-hour march from Rashaya to the Hermon summit, the region’s highest peak, where Jesus Christ is believed to transfigure. It is the transfiguration mountain mentioned in the Gospels, Mark 8: 1, scene of the Transfiguration Christ,  “after Jesus had passed through the upper valley of the Jordan north of Cæsarea Philippi