Evenings at Carmel Center

Talk about Haifa, the hill city, I had this huge mental block where in my husband's work place is near the beach, down hill and how are we going to manage staying up the hill ? I get dizzy when we ride on hills. The day we landed, we had an itinerary such that we landed in day light on a weekday and not on a Shabbat or weekend. As mentioned earlier, we took the train from Ben Gurion Airport to Hof-a-Carmel, the beach station in Haifa and a taxi drive to the hotel. We checked-in around 6pm and were still fresh enough to take a walk around. So, we did go out for a stroll and grabbed some quick dinner. That first walk, we got introduced to the surroundings.

Dan Panorama in the Carmel center has one of the most beautiful play parks and a zoological park situated right opposite to it. We were fortunate enough to have chosen this hotel for our initial stay. Advantages being a kitchenette in the room, a bus stop 100m away, the Gan HaEm park and many restaurants close-by. Well, what less can we expect from the center of the city ? Near the bus stop, there were plenty of stores, to name a few are the Shufersal Express , a famous falafel outlet At David's, a candy shop Chocolata, many banks and ATMs.  Dan Panorama has a small mall at the ground level which hosts a coffee shop, a pharmacy and a few garments, jewelery and electronics outlets. Even though we were staying in a hotel, we felt very safe because of the availability of our daily needs at such a close distance. Only our biggest downside was we did not know Hebrew. But the people, i must say, are so helpful and kind that even if they did not understand English, they made sure they went in search of someone who knew and assisted us in some way or the other.

Carousel at Gan HaEm

The Play area at Gan HaEm

Coming back to the park part, with a 3 year old in the family, I oughta keep him entertained. So our evening schedules were pretty much one of the said - (a) Take a bus, go down the hill watching the sun set, to dad's work place, come back to the hotel in the car with him (or) (b) play in the Gan HaEm park till dad's home/hotel. Gan HaEm, meaning mother's park else word to word translation would be (Gan) Park (Ha) The (Em-a)Mother. Be it whatever time of the year, the parks in Israel are always full. It is a very child friendly country. Every 1 or 2 km there is a children's play area. My first few visits to the park, I thought "9 in 10 women I see in a day are pregnant." But that is true, they want their Jewish society to grow, Jews to have more children for reasons we all know :-). Apart from children, Israel is very pet friendly too and the proof - 100s of cats and kittens in every nook and corner of the streets. We clicked this cat as early as Feb,2009 but only in March, 2010 did we get to know its my husband's colleague's cat on Yefe Nof :-).

Our breakfasts were taken care at the hotel. In the afternoon, it was only my son and I. A 3 year old Indian child doesnt eat much. So I borrowed the electric rice cooker from our relocations management personnel and we enjoyed good rasam and curd (yogurt from Shufersal) rice. The same continued in the evenings too, lovely smelling Basmati rice from the Shufersal, got converted to Puliyogare (had carried MTR puliyogare powder) and thayir sadam. The dinner menu did not stop with that, sometimes we even had microwaved papadams. A few days we had dosas from the dosa mix powders I had carried from here. The hotel had provided 2 sauce pans - which I used for rasam or boiling milk for the little one. Borrowed the rice cooker and a wok from the relo-lady. So, we had a fully-southy-kitchenette up and running. 

Some views we enjoyed from the room - 

Yefe Nof street, Louis Promenade, Baha'i, the Bay

Zoom in Baha'i 

Port and a building resembling Burj, Dubai & Axe, UK

Three full weeks in the hotel we felt very much at home, never like an alien in the Mediterranean region. The friendly folks, the beautiful Feb-March weather, the vegetarian falafel, hummus, the beautiful bay views kept us alive and kicking!

Caesarea ~ Qesariya

They have Hebrew names for every international name. For example, India is (k)Hodu, English is Anglit or in proper nouns, Jonathan is Yonathan. But this is not a new phenomenon for Indians, since we also have Calcutta as Kolkotta, Bombay as Mumbai and Madras as Chennai. Funnier instance is the way these names are spelt, when you already have 2 different names, they make sure to spell them in a dozen different ways :-) One such place is Caesarea or Qesariya. Exactly half way and equidistant (45-50km) from Tel Aviv and Haifa via Road 2 or Road 4, this is a beautiful Roman city under the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. This city as-is was finally designed and built by King Herod and named in honor of the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus. It has undergone changes from the Byzantine period to Saladin period.

But the Roman architecture is very vividly visible. Think of romans, you can only think of one thing - the amphitheater. This amphitheater is usually rented for social gatherings, award functions, music nights and even weddings.

There are 3 parts to this national park that I would like to mention about. The first is the entrance at the amphitheater, which has the ticket counter and the rest rooms and a couple of small souvenir shops where you can grab a drink or ice cream. As we walk away from the amphitheater into the ancient city, we can see the remains of Herod's palace, the sea by the side of the famous hippodrome by King Herod. And this amazing view ends at the Maritime and diving center of Caesarea. You could call that the exit or entry II, which is flooded with many many restaurants and jewelery shops.

View of the ancient city

A walk along the hippodrome on high tide days, one can get a free shower by the sea waters. Kids have amazing amount of fun collecting beautiful pebbles and shells.

Herod's Hippodrome

Towards the 2nd entrance we can see more remains and a huge spread of lawns for a wonderful picnic. Opposite to these ruins is the wide spread of souvenir shops/ice cream juice shops and restaurants.

As we walk out, we get a glimpse of an old synagogue.

The moat around Caesarea

Along the diving center, there are these broken walls bordering the sea. These walls were said to be broken/destroyed by Saladin. Many young boys and girls have a hobby of jumping off the walls into the Mediterranean sea, thus entertaining us and even offering to pose for some pictures.

As we turn around, we spot a bunch of senior citizens involved in this quiet hobby of fishing. Be it sun or rain, they take care of their silent business very well.

Caesarea Harbor

People who do not have the National parks pass or want to visit parts of Caesarea free of cost, can go to that part of the beach which has the Aqueduct. Once again, this aqueduct was built by Herod.

Caesarea will always have a special mention because, this was the first place, our very first weekend outing. We landed on Thursday evening, and on Saturday morning we drove to this ancient city. We have visited this place 4 times in 15 months. And our penultimate weekend trip before leaving the country was also to Caesarea.

That said about the remains of the ancient roman city, Caesarea, at present is one of the poshest localities in Israel and also is known for the high theft rate :-).

Baha'i Gardens

Think of Haifa, you think of the beautiful Baha'i Gardens. The Gardens spread down the Carmel mountains starting from the Yefe Nof street down till the German colony. Unfortunately, we have not been inside the shrine since it was closed for renovation but were fortunate enough to walk through the gardens in the top half and the bottom half. The view of the gardens is breathtaking. I have seen the Baha'i  Shrine in New Delhi, but this one is matchless. The below pictures were taken at two different times in a year, the dome of the shrine is visible partially in the second, but is fully covered for renovation in the first image. The Baha'i shrine or the shrine of the Bab has a golden dome.

View from 45 YefeNof - the Gardens thr German colony to the Haifa port

As seen from the bottom of the hill from the end of the German colony

the gardens at level 0

The sweet surprise rainbows are one of the many things we miss about Haifa, Israel.

the rainbow and one of the eagle structures in the garden.

 We visited these gardens only after 6 months of our stay in Haifa. Wasn't that quick ? It is like not visiting Goa after having born and brought up in India. But that is the case with many Israelis, they travel like migrant birds but there are always a handful that have still not seen the garden in detail. There is one other Baha'i Shrine in Akko - we could not cover it. They fondly call the Baha'i gardens of Israel, Gan Baha'i, Gan meaning garden.

God is nature, nature is God.

Haifa

A good 100km north of the Ben-Gurion International Airport is the picturesque town of Haifa - a beautiful hillock overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Said to be the hi-tech city in the northern part of the country, it is well connected by highways (Road 2 and Road 4) and trains. We took the train from the airport, the train line runs along the coast for the most part of the 1 hour journey. The first 3 weeks of "get introduced to Israel" period was well spent in Dan Panorama. The tall towers of the hotel on the Carmel mountains could very well be called the twin towers of Haifa which are visible from the northern most part of Israel and even Lebanon for that matter. The bay view is breathtaking.

Haifa Bay as seen from Yefe-Nof street

In a couple of days, it was Purim. My son and I thoroughly enjoyed the carnival at the Louis promenade that runs on Yefe Nof (meaning, beautiful view) street, although we did not know the significance of the festival at that point.

View of Dan Panorama from Louis Promenade

The Purim Carnival on Louis Promenade(Feb2009)

Shalom

First step into the holy land we were greeted with a thousand Shalom-s and smiling faces. They love India as much as they love their Jewish state and so did I love Israel and I still do...