Haifa & the Galilee

Israel is an incredibly diverse country. Although consisting of only 8,522 square metres (compared to England's 50,346) it is home to rugged coastline, arid desert, snow-capped mountains and lush nature reserves, as well as countless sites of massive religious, historical and political significance. Since my last post I have explored a little of what this staggering nation has to offer.

I arrived in Haifa last Sunday (3rd Feb). I consulted my Lonely Planet map and saw that Carmel Centre, where couchsurfers Ariel and Hagai lived, was a mere two kilometres from the station, so I decided to walk. Unfortunately I had actually come into an entirely different station, six kilometres away. Significantly more unfortunately, my map failed to show contours, and I continued blissfully unaware that I had over 500 metres to climb, carrying my ludicrously large rucksack. A horrible two-hour trudge later I arrived, dripping with sweat, and trod on a dead rat. Not the best introduction to the North coast.

Luckily, things got a lot better, and by the same time the following day I had fallen in love with Haifa. The city has no real historical sites, and only a few uninteresting religious ones, but it is just a beautiful place. The centrepiece of Haifa is the Shrine of the Bab and its Terraces. This attraction spreads up Mount Carmel, consisting of a large golden-domed building with nine impeccably maintained garden terraces above and below. It is the home of the Bahá'í Faith, a modern, forward-thinking and peaceful religion (imagine!) that diplomatically accepts aspects of all the great monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) as well as Hinduism, Buddhism and many more. The gardens are stunning, with trees shaped to perfection and every blade of grass lovingly trimmed to equal length. It is only viewable as part of a tour and as there was no English language one that day I had no other option than to pretend to be Russian – surprisingly, this was not dissimilar to my 'Romanian' (see Aswan & Luxor).

The following day I caught a bus to Nazareth. The main attraction is the enormous Church of the Annunciation, which is surrounded with mosaics of Mary and Jesus donated from various countries around the world. Interestingly, in the Chinese version M&J look Chinese, in the Indian version they appear Indian etc. The most exciting part of Nazareth however was the bomb scare in the high street. Traffic ground to a halt as the bomb squad moved in on an unattended bag. A growing crowd of interested locals were held back by the police, though the 'safety zone' can't have been more than a ten metre perimeter...hardly tip-top security. After a two hour delay, a woman emerged from the crowd asking for her bag back. The police skulked off and I caught a bus to Tiberius.

On Wednesday I rented a bike to circumnavigate the Sea (lake) of Galilee. I started the fifty kilometre trip from my hostel, stopping at some supposed religious spots en route; Tabgha, where Jesus fed the five thousand; Capernaum, where Jesus taught in a synagogue; and the stretch of the Jordan River where Jesus was baptised (although Bethany in Jordan has the same claim). I also went for a brief swim in the 'sea', and made a slight diversion to visit the village of Ramot and sample some of the local wine. In Tiberius that night I had the dorm room to myself, and spent it listening to a girl in the next room repeatedly scream "You've ruined my life!" I asked the receptionist to check that she was okay, and I heard him go into her room and tactfully tell her to "shut up". She didn't.

I spent the next couple of days hitchhiking around the Golan Heights. Tsfat, the country's highest town, was a particular highlight with an interesting souq, great views over the Hula Valley and buildings riddled with bullet holes from the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon conflict, while the recommended Qiryat Shemona was rather disappointing. Before the start of Shabbat, while I still had the option, I made my way back to Haifa.

On Friday night I went out with some people from the hostel. We had a few drinks and I somehow managed to lose a sock. I also walked back in the dark kicking what I thought was an acorn, but turned out to be a dried dog poo. Still, I beat my keepy-up record. On Saturday I moved in with another couchsurfer called Jon (friend of Ariel and Hagai) and, as nothing else was open, we spent the day smoking sheesha on the beach with a Brazilian couple – while they were in coats sipping coffee, I was in shorts tucking into a Solero. On Sunday I went to the Old City of Akko, which over the last thousand years has been invaded and inhabited by the French, Ottomans, British, Crusaders and Knights Templar. Bloody French. The most interesting thing was the Citadel, which was used as a political prison during the British Mandate. Some quite atrocious things occurred there, but let's not discuss that! On Monday I spent the morning hiking with Jon and his archaeologist friend to Daliyat al-Karmel – it was like a free tour as they handed me pieces of pottery to inspect and pointed out ancient Jewish burial grounds – and on Tuesday I went to Rosh HaNikra on the Lebanese border. Here, the world's steepest cable car (is that my first superlative since Japan?) takes you down to a series of caves in the chalk rock face, and you can wander part way into a wide tunnel built by the British to transport goods all the way from Europe to Egypt. Obviously it's no longer open (that Lebanon-Israel thing again) but during World War II it was used to rescue hundreds of Jews from Nazi territory. Good old Brits – no wonder everybody in Israel loves us.

On Tuesday evening I came to Tel Aviv, but I shall save that for the next post. Just a little something to whet your appetite.

Joe x