Haifa

Wedding number 3 over and done it was time for PATP to leave Tel-Aviv and head up to Haifa for a few days.  With neither of them having spent much time in Haifa previously, the first afternoon was spent wandering around getting acquainted, enjoying frozen yoghurts and relaxing on the beach.  The next day PATP caught a sherut (communal, intercity taxi) to Caesarea.  Despite the driver talking on his mobile and trying to intimidate a female passenger who was hassling him to get off his mobile whilst driving (at one point the suddenly pulled over and threw what he thought was her bag out onto the kerb telling her to get out of the car – only in Israel!) they did make it to the appropriate junction. From there it was a half hour walk or so to the archaeological park. The city of Caesarea was built to King Herod as his tribute to Rome and to enhance his standing within the empire as a new port, and it stayed in use with several different occupiers until the Ottomans destroyed it after the crusades. Most of the ruins are Roman, with other parts layered on top.

Caesarea

After exploring for a while, PATP decided to sit in one of the beachfront bars for a drink and some lunch looking out over the Mediterranean and the submerged harbour. They then headed up and down through more ruins, including the amphitheatre and hippodrome before heading back to the highway and hailing a sherut back to Haifa.

The following morning PATP decided it was tine to visit the main tourist site in Haifa – the Bahai gardens, the second most holy site in the world for the Bahai religion, where the prophet Bab or whatever his name was did something or other before being executed in Iran. Or maybe it was his following prophet (we’ll call him Fernando coz we don’t remember his name either) who did something there. Or liked the site since it’s the only place on the Israeli coast that faces North. Clearly the information PATP were told stuck in their heads well. Either way, it’s fantastic garden sprawling all the way down the mountain with a shrine in the middle. To get to the tour, the options on a public holiday were either walk all the way up the mountain or get a cab. After confirming the location and price with the cab driver, he decided to drop PATP where a bunch of tour buses had stopped, rather than where they had agreed and where the tour left from, further up the mountain. After discovering this, PATP reluctantly trekked the rest of the way up and joined the queue for any of the following 4 tours in different languages. Since no-one knew what was going on, PATP eventually pushed their way to the front in true Israeli style to get on their tour.

Bahai Gardens

Following this, PATP had an overpriced but delicious lunch in one of the tourist restaurants in the centre of town, as everything else was closed. After some further chilling in the afternoon, PATP headed out again to find dinner. Since none of the Jewish shops had reopened after the holiday and all the local (Christian) Arab shops and restaurants were closed as it was Sunday, dinner ended up being some pre packaged salads, dips and crackers from a corner store. Mmm, gourmet.