Israel Day 7 - Caesarea and Haifa

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On this morning’s itinerary is Caesarea, Herod’s port. The whole ancient town is now a National Park. In some places, such as the amphitheatre, the arichitecture is incredibly well preserved. In others, bits of statue and remnants of marble columns are sprawled around like a huge Roman jigsaw puzzle.

Today’s ultimate desination is Haifa, a port city at the foot of Mount Carmel. Our hotel has overbooked and passed our reservation to the Templers Boutique Hotel. Their error is our gain as the hotel is immaculate, beautifully renovated and includes some very quirky toilets.

The main attraction in Haifa is The Baha’i Gardens; 19 immaculate terraced gardens cascading down the mountain side. Our hotel is just metres from the bottom of the gardens. We try to enter, but are told the entrance is one level further up, via a public staircase. 364 stairs later, we arrive to be told this entrance is now shut and we need to ascend another level. We’re tired, we consider a further ascent but my Fitbit has run out of battery; these steps won’t even ‘count’. We settle for enjoying the view and looking at the gardens from the edge.

Back down 364 stairs and off in search of provisions. We google the nearest supermarket, it turns out to be Ukranian. Everything is in such huge packs, the only sensible option appears to be the deli. It’s a bit tricky, we don’t have a language in common with the extremely helpful asssitant, and I have to be careful not to buy anything containing nuts. I point at various items and she draws pictures of the ingredients. We end up with a tasty selection of mystery goods.

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