This morning met our guide - Itamar - and headed towards Ceasarea. I was there a few years ago with M, but it was amazing to see again. It is a city and port built by Herod The Great in about 20BC, then extended a few hundred years later and modified again by the crusaders a thousand or so years later. It was ransacked and mostly destroyed by the Muslims who defeated the crusaders and has been partly excavated over the last 50 years. Absolutely incredible - a place everyone should see. You can still see the large Roman city it would have been, complete with an amazing public bathhouse, a hippodrome and a restored ampitheatre (now used for concerts).
Then stopped in Zichron Ya'acov - one of the earliest Jewish towns in Israel, settled in 1882. It is a very pretty town of 9,000 people and a really nice place to visit. We visited a fascinating little museum about a group of jews who were valuable sources of intelligence to the British in their defeat of the Ottomon empire (ie. the Turks) in Palestine during WW1 - many of the group died for their efforts.
Then lunch in a Druze village - an amazing selection of middle-eastern salads followed by meat. Way too much food, but some of the tastiest I've ever eaten. An amazing meal. The Druze are a thousand-year-old spin-off of Islam - I have no understanding of their beliefs.
Then to Haifa. A major port and Israel's 3rd city. We did the obligatory stop for photos looking out over the Baha'i Gardens - very beautiful and immaculately kept gardens at the headquarters of the Baha'i religion (Baha'i is another religion whose beliefs I don't really understand). See photos below, including a photo of the ship Israel recently confiscated from the protesters trying to breach the Gaza blockade.
Staying in Haifa tonight. Wandered around the German Colony (we're staying in the heart of it at the Colony Hotel) and ate more hummus.
No comments:
Post a Comment