Last Leg on the Ancient Mediterranean Tour: Israel

Phew, made it to Israel. We’ve reached our final country on this empty-nester tour of ancient lands of the Med. I don’t mind admitting I’m feeling a little worn down at this point, and I catch myself thinking of home more and more frequently. I’m trying to stay present and focus on the here and now, so as to wring more from the experience. Most of the time it’s pretty easy to do, and luckily Israel provides a lot to command our attention.

We had to transit through Athens due to the lack of national relations between Lebanon and Israel (flew 1,450 miles to go 130 miles on the map – kinda crazy). After some extra scrutiny from El Al, the Israeli airline known for its ultra tight security, we arrived after a long transit day to a lovely sunset on the tarmac.

Quiet spot in Athens

Rain! It exists!

For the first time on this trip, we stayed at an honest to goodness hostel — the famed Abraham Hostel. But, no dorm rooms for us. We took one of one their superior rooms with a kitchen and private bathroom. Still, it was fun to hang out with the young and old (we were definitely not the oldest in case you were wondering).

The dining room and hang out area

We are about to do the opposite!

We spent a couple days in Tel Aviv to get our bearings, and had a half-day bike tour of parts of the city. TLV is big, modern and pricey (though Jenn was psyched about the food options; she knew way in advance it’s a haven for good vegan food). Our bike tour was along the coast down to the old port of Jaffa, just to the south, but we also walked some of the nearby neighborhoods (Florentin; Carmel Market). It was energetic and cosmopolitan.

We then picked up our rental car and drove up the coast to Haifa, where we had scheduled a brief tour of the Baha’i Gardens, the main thing to see in the city. Their gardens cascade down a large hill with stunning views of the port city.

We knew nothing of the Baha’i religion, which is an offshoot of Islam that started in the mid 1800’s, and has a small global following of about 8 million people (mostly in India). This site in Israel is their HQ and holiest site, and those of the Baha’i faith must make a pilgrimage here at some point in their lives.

These pics don’t do it justice. There are 19 tiers to this garden, cascading down a giant hillside. Everything was immaculately maintained.

Our ultimate destination was the ancient city of Akko (also called Acre). Stop me if you’ve heard this before: one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; a port city with a Crusader-era castle built on top of Roman, Greek and Phoenician towns. It’s not the exact image of Byblos in Lebanon, but it’s eerily familiar with its limestone walls and narrow stone streets.

We had one giant mezze meal in Akko, where we thought we were picking four items from a list of 14, but instead were told that that we’d get all 14 which was the standard fare as we later noticed at other tables. It was a magnificent feast and 12 of the 14 items were vegan, so Jenn was delighted. We managed to eat nearly everything (but we did bring two of the big salads home for dinner).

We have one more week in Israel so stay turned!