Haifa and Akko

Beach day!  We followed some poor directions and took a bus that meandered through the city for an hour and half before dropping us off at Hof HaCarmel beach.  Our ride back on the proper bus took about 30 minutes.  Haifa’s beaches are really nice and fairly clean.  There's a promenade along the beach with restaurants you can grab a drink at.  The sand is real, unlike Seattle beaches!  This one had volleyball courts and workout equipment right by the water.  Jeremy got a workout on the equipment and we watched local teens and 20-somethings doing gymnastic type moves on pullup bars.  A fun relaxing afternoon and evening. 

Getting some pull-ups in at the beach!

Doritos!

Another day, we traveled North to Akko, also known as Acre.  It was mentioned in Egyptian texts as far back as the 19^th century BC and has been a harbor and port for Alexander the Great, the Assyrians, the Romans, Arab armies, and grew largest under the Christian Crusaders.  We explored the courtyards, subterranean streets, halls and a Crusader tunnel that brought supplies underground from the port to the citadel during warring times. 

Jeremy put on his headlamp, exploring some tiny tunnels we weren’t supposed to go into (later we found out these were ancient sewers).  Only stopping after he came to a tunnel so tight that if he crawled down it he wouldn’t have been able to turn around and would have had to crawl out backwards, the way he came.  Meanwhile, Samara was freaking out about getting arrested!

Not the greatest video, but you get an idea of how adventurous Jeremy is vs. how cautious Samara is!  Pretty funny!

We walked along some of the seawalls and when we came to a lighthouse, Jeremy again proposed to Samara, as he has done several times since the real proposal, which was next to a Portugese lighthouse in Lagos last summer.  Samara said she'll always say yes, but he can feel free to propose over and over, even after the wedding! :)  

The mosque in the old city.

The sea wall behind me and you can see 3 fisherman standing on underwater wall remnants, very small on the right behind me.

The lighthouse is behind Jeremy, where he proposed again.

The 3 fisherman standing on the old citadel foundation.

Here's the citadel foundation under water.

We saw souks or markets for the locals that paled in comparison to the Moroccan souks.  We couldn't believe we saw a restaurant named “Sons of Ezra.”  In Hebrew, Jeremy’s last name, Benezra, means Son of Ezra.

After much hunting online we finally found somewhere to rockclimb!  An indoor climbing gym called Boulder, situated in East Haifa.  We brought most of our climbing gear – rope, helmets, climbing shoes, harnesses, carabiners, and climbing anchors.  But most of the climbing sites are in Hebrew and our Hebrew, while improving daily, still is pitiful.  We got a good workout at the gym and made some Israeli friends who have given us much needed info on how to get to the outdoor climbing.  Indoor climbing gyms are fun, but they are just practice for cliffs, boulders, and crags outdoors.

We have just arrived in Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galillee.  There is lots of hiking in the area and the town has an old city, which we look forward to seeing.  In many European cities, the old city is inside of castle walls and was the extent of the town at that time.  Later, when populations grew, the boundaries of the cities were expanded.  In Jerusalem for example (which we will eventually see as we make our way South) there is the ancient old city inside the castle walls.  Streets were made for pedestrians or carts and are narrow and winding.  Outside that you have the modern city with skyscrapers, shopping malls, and wide, straight streets you are used to driving down.  Much less exciting than the old stone buildings that are inside the old city and full of stories and history.