Heading North, Heading West

This morning started early with the realization that, in spite of being served dinner in a restaurant after sundown on Friday night, shabbat was being strictly observed on Saturday morning.   Well, only partly true -- the hotel had no one at the front desk for check out and the breakfast room was closed -- if only I'd known that they were just serving breakfast at a room around the side, not visible from the street.  Oh well, I walked to a gas station where I got a bottle of water and went to meet my new guide Bena.  Bena had driven to Jerusalem from his home in Caesarea to pick me up... and it was to Caesarea we returned for our first stop for the day.  Our itinerary was focused on national parks (open on Shabbat) and Arab destinations (again, open on Shabbat).

the site of Herod's pool at Caesarea

Caesarea has the ruins of a Roman port city, built by King Herod between 20 BCE and 9 CE and includes a theater, palace, bath house, church and a very long aqueduct that brought fresh water to the seaside complex.  He named the city Caesarea to curry favor with the emperor Caesar Augustus.  

In addition to people looking at the ancient site, Caesarea was busy place, with fisherman, sailors, kids playing on the beach and ocean swimmers enjoying 70 degree temps in December.

We went north from there to Haifa, where we headed straight to the view overlooking the Baha'i Gardens and the vast and busy port.  It looked like there were ships as far as the eye could see waiting to come into the port to unload.  We didn't have time to tour the Baha'i Gardens but they were lovely to see from above.

Our next stop was Akko, where there is a very large ruin/restoration/preservation from the time of the Crusades. Akko is an Arab town, and the bustling market was our first stop to get falafel.

Akko sits on the Mediterranean Sea at a critical juncture, from which you can go Southwest to Egypt and Africa, East to Asia and North to Europe.  As such, it's been an important spot from the early Bronze Age through the Roman period, Byzantine rule, Islamic rule, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Empire up through the present day.  We were there to focus on the Crusaders, as they left behind a vast complex of rooms, dining hall, baths, a hospital, dungeons and the like.  It's a little hard to tease out what's Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Robin Hood vs actual history I've learned/read/seen in movies.  Thankfully Bena doesn't have that same confusion (although we did relate the theater in Caesarea to Gladiator).

After a quick detour through an elaborately preserved/restored Turkish Bath, we returned to the market for  dessert. It was my first time trying kanafeh, a sweet made from goat's milk, rose water and crisp tiny noodles, topped with pistachios.  Yum. 

 

And finally,  drive from west to east to Galilee.  This is the site of the hotel (not, sadly, the view from my room!) and will be our starting point for tomorrow's adventures.