Caesaria and Haifa
Our trip from Petra to Tel Aviv was a long one. We awoke early in the morning and took a taxi from our hotel back to Aqaba, where we again crossed back into Israel. Crossing back into Israel was a bit trickier than going to Jordan, as my wife was heavily questioned about why she is traveling to Israel. After she gave a list of her relatives that live in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, they let us in. From Eilat, we took a flight to Tel Aviv, where one of Nelya’s cousins picked us up at the airport. Our time in Tel Aviv was very busy between seeing relatives and visiting places. We were given the royal treatment while in Tel Aviv, and the friend of one of Nelya’s cousins was nice enough to take us on a day trip to Haifa and Caesaria.
In Haifa, our main destination was the Baha’i Gardens. The Baha’i religion is a very interesting religion that unfortunately I know very little about. The only things I know about it is it is for the most part peaceful and the holiest place in the world for them are these gardens in Haifa, which are meticulously decorated and well kept.
Unfortunately we were not able to tour the entire gardens, but we did get a view from the top and were able to tour the bottom gardens with the temple.
The entire grounds are amazingly clean and well kept. It must take a small army of gardeners to keep this place immaculate.
From here it was a short trip to Caesaria, which is an ancient port built during the time of Herod the Great. At the time it was one of the largest ports in the world, but unfortunately did not survive long before it sunk into the sea. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the area as a whole, as it has become an upscale resort - where the wives of wealthy Israelis go to spend their day by the beach. The entire area is very posh and the ruins are displayed like exhibits at DisneyWorld, rather than as architectural wonders.
This is a shot through an arch in an aqueduct of the beach. It was actually quite difficult to get this shot as there was a lot of garbage and man made structures in the area.
Here’s a better view of a good portion of the aqueduct.
The port itself I did not find very interesting - too touristy. However I did like this shot I got of one of the friezes of a column.
All in all it was a nice time out. However, this concluded the majority of our sight seeing. We headed back to Tel Aviv, ready to see family and ready to party.
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These are just wonderful images, so much history, what a experience it must have been !!