Complete set of photos from Haifa, Caesarea and Acre
Our style of travel is to book as we go with maybe just some flights and accommodation in bigger cities booked ahead. This has worked fine but means that you have to devote some energy while travelling to figuring out where to go next and then booking it. Our Israel itinerary caused some heated moments. Sarah had been very good in reading the entire guidebook and suggesting itineraries to her fellow travellers who had not done quite as much reading. The problem was we kept changing our mind and infuriating Sarah by changing it back again once we had arrived somewhere. “That’s what I suggested in the first place,” Sarah would cry out. Haifa was a point of contention. Should we stay here or in the smaller Caesarean or Acre. In the end Jackie and I went through the available hotel options and sad to say there weren’t a lot of good ones to choose from, even though it was low season. We took the hotel which had the best looking rooms for the best price despite a number of reviews mentioning the road works going on right outside the hotel.
We drove up there from Tel Aviv in the late afternoon, surprised by how much traffic there was going up this apparent growth corridor on the Israeli coast. We passed many industrial parks and traffic was really crawling in both directions. We eventually made it to Haifa after dark and just managed to find our way to the hotel through yet another maze of one way streets. The street out the front of the hotel looked like a war zone with piles of dirt and tiles everywhere. We rolled our bags over the dirt mounds, Rick and Sarah giving Jackie and I some stick for our carefully thought out choice, which looked even worse when we got into the apartments to find no-one there and no information. Thank god for free wifi which we used to check my email and get the landlords number. In the end the apartments were great with nice design and quiet enough at night.
Haifa is the home to the Baha’i religion which came about in the 1800s. I’m not sure why they thought the world was lacking enough religions to go around. For a religion that espouses universality they have very restrictive access to the gardens stretching down Mount Carmel for which they are justifiably famous. The gardens are as well manicured as a lawn bowls green but only Baha’i may go beyond the first two levels. Believers make pilgrimage here and have to climb an extraordinary number of steps on their knees, which seems derivative for such a modern religion.
Caesarea to the south has more Roman ruins. No doubt if we had started our holiday with these ruins they would have seemed amazing but compared to Jerash and Umm Qais they were not as spectacular. The Israeli ruin setup is a lot different as well with lots of cafes and restaurants within the ruins which I guess makes it a more lively place but doesn’t get the right atmosphere. Still, we took advantage of the restaurants I’m criticising to have a very nice lunch overlooking the turquoise Mediterranean. The best part of the ruins are the extensive Roman baths that require a bit of imagination to summon to life but picturing oneself in a Roman bath is always pleasing. The animated video history of the ancient town had a skewed portrayal of the Arab influence on the town. Roman and Crusader times were depicted as a model of civilization, then the Arabs came a long and burned it all down. They did do that but it glosses over the nasty aspects of the other empires in the region.
At the petrol station near Ceasearea Rick was filling up when the attendant spoke to him in Hebrew. Rick replied, “I don’t speak English,” which must have been confusing for his interrogator. Israelis make the assumption that you speak Hebrew first. With such a diverse cultural mix you can’t assume who is Israeli or not. Hebrew is the official language and it’s really drummed into people everywhere. There is not much resorting to English. With Jews coming from such a range of countries this policy makes sense.
To the north of Haifa is Acre or Akko. We never did find out why this place has two names (or maybe Sarah read it out a few times and I just don’t remember) – no doubt it has something to do with the waves of overlords wanting to stamp their mark on the place. The old walled city is miraculously intact and in use. The quiet streets have the occasional pedestrian and cat but are otherwise perfect for getting lost in. The feature attraction is the old fort which is impressively large as are most structures built by the crusaders. This was the arrivals terminal for sick crusader-era pilgrims coming to the holy land for a miracle cure. They recuperated in the fort’s hospital protected by mad monks and nursed by religious types. Medieval medicine is not renowned for efficacious or pleasant cures so hopefully for them they were well enough to toddle along to Jerusalem for whatever religious hocus pocus passed for a cure. It can’t have been any worse than what the doctors were offering.
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