First Person: Spencer Anderson - "I escaped from the gunmen of Beirut"

Something was wrong. Beirut's streets were deserted, save for a few soldiers and frantically honking taxis. Barbed wire and tanks blocked access to downtown.

I had just arrived from Syria with my Italian wife Francesca and two friends. We had time for a jaunt into Lebanon, so we'd come. We'd seen nothing to alarm us in the news, and the warning on the US embassy's website was similar to its advice on Syria - which had been spectacularly inaccurate.

We were exploring the city when an SUV pulled up alongside us and everything changed. A man rolled down the window and told us to get inside because we "stuck out". There had been shooting earlier.

The driver took us to our hotel. A receptionist advised us to stay put but predicted all would be calm the next day. I called the US embassy. An employee told me to call back tomorrow at 8am and hung up.

The following day the streets still seemed tense, so I called the embassy again. No one picked up the phone so we thought, what the hell, and went for a walk.

We returned to our hotel after lunch, intending to rest. But then we heard shots, which grew louder. We turned on the news. Full-on gun battles in west Beirut. I called the embassy again and was told to register online.

Francesca then called the Italian embassy, where someone immediately recorded her details and advised her not to leave the hotel. They also said that if they decided to evacuate people, they would call. From then on the embassy regularly texted us with updates and advice.

I tried to register online with my embassy, but only had access to an ipod touch. Part-way through the huge mass of information the embassy demanded in order to set up "an account" the battery faded.

By now the guns and rockets were in full force, so we retreated to our rooms. I tried the US embassy again. This time someone e-mailed a form with instructions to return it with a fax of my passport. I later received an e-mail confirming that my details had been received, and telling me to "have a nice day".

Meanwhile, the Italians were moving. My wife suffers from epilepsy and was worried that her drugs would run out. But embassy staff had got hold of what she needed, and told us that people were on their way to evacuate us.

Men in orange jackets reading "Unita di Crisi" (Crisis Unit) arrived and escorted us to a van led by a Lebanese military truck with armed soldiers. One man in orange got in a car leading the motorcade and off we rolled. At a Hizbollah-linked militia checkpoint he stepped out and talked to a Kalashnikov-wielding fighter, who waved us on. We made 15 stops, each time negotiating with different militias.

Finally we arrived at the Italian embassy. The ambassador greeted us individually and made us an espresso. He explained that the situation was delicate, but that they would do everything to get us out.

The man in the orange jacket - who told me that in 20 years in Lebanon he had been kidnapped five times - confessed he was surprised that the militias had let us through. He added that the road north to Syria was open and that we could escape that way. He said we should take a taxi and keep in touch - he even gave us his business card.

Getting out was terrifying and fighting broke out in Tripoli as we drove through. But we made it, collapsing in relief as Syrian border officials stamped our passports.

Meanwhile, the US embassy e-mailed me to tell me to avoid travelling to Lebanon.