Journal day 5- Akko.

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Neill and I headed up to North Israel this morning to the Western Galilee region to explore around the city of Akko.

On the way we passed through the port city of Haifa which was convenient as Neill had to stop off at a museum where he had been called to see to the restoration of a few historical damage due to a leak in the museum's roof.
As Neill was working I was able to look around the museum which focused on Israel during the years 1934 – 1948, when the British Mandate was in operation and used the city of Haifa as their deep water port.

Haifa is also a very important place for the Bahá'í Faith. A religion which I'd never heard of before. Apparently the faith is only a couple of hundred years old and Haifa contains overly elaborate terraced hill-side gardens and whiter-than-white homes and buildings all dedicated to this faith and it's seeminly very wealthy followers.

So drove further north and arrived in Akko (also known as Acre). Akko is an ancient city and has been continuously inhabited possibly as far back as 16th century B.C. It's also the most important city for the Bahá'í Faith.
Due to it's fortified walls and large citadel and Knights halls it seems to be known primarily as a crusaders city but it has at different times been under Greek, Roman, Arab, Crusader and Ottoman rule throughout the centuries. Even in the 1940's used as a prison by the British to lock up Jewish Zionists.

Neill and I got tickets that would let us through all the various locations throughout the city and we wandered around all day looking at the Citadel, the Knight's Halls, Tunnels and the finally the Turkish baths which for some reason contained a wierdly acted out comedy show which I guess sort of illustrated the the story of the bathowners throughout history.

We then walked around the fortified walls a bit before stumbling upon a secluded little sun-trap of a bar below on the edge of the mediteranean sea that looked to appealing to resist.
After having a cold pint to relax looking out over the setting sun glistening on the sea surrounded by the crusader's walls we decided to relax even further by smoking a bit of the ol Hooka made it nearly impossible to get up and head back to the car.

When we got back to Rishpon we headed out with Noa, Nimrod and the kids to a big burger restaurant nearby.
Good fun evening finished with ridiculous amounts of ice cream. Not bad day all around!

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