We were so tired after our long day in Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, but because we wanted to fit as much as humanly possible into our time in Israel, we got ourselves up early again and met up with Daniel. Our first stop was the Ba'Hai Gardens in Haifa. A big part of the Ba'Hai religion is meditation, and they believe it is easier to meditate without any distractions, like irregularities in the environment which could draw your attention away from your center. So, these gardens are meticulously maintained…each blade of grass is the same length, everything is absolutely symmetrical.
From here, we drove about 45 minutes to the ancient Roman city of Zippori. This is where we all got very Indiana Jones. Daniel first took us to walk through a giant cistern outside of the ruins.
After we reached the end and climbed out, we actually went down into the tunnels where the water would run from the cistern into the aqueducts. We literally had to climb on our hands and knees and use our cellphones as flashlights.
It was so cool! We also saw the ruins of a Roman mansion with the most spectacular mosaic floor we have seen yet.
Violet and Hayden found some massive dandelions along the pathway.
After seeing all there was to see in Zippori, we drove to the city of Acco. Acco is a harbor city that was conquered by the Crusaders in the 11th century. They built these incredible, European style halls and fortresses for their knights and pilgrims. They were only discovered about twenty five years ago. When the Turks invaded Acco, they decided to fill the old city with sand and built on top, so the crusader city was perfectly preserved until it was excavated in the 1980s.
Because the crusaders needed help from others to overthrow Acco, each ally in the war demanded part of the city and its port as payment. When Acco was finally captured, part of the city belonged to the crusaders, part to the Pisans, part to the Venetians, part to the Templars, and part to the Genoans. And afterwards, these groups were always fighting. One solution was to dig tunnels from one groups' area in the city to their part of the port so they didn't have to pay any tariffs to the others, or really to have any contact with them at all. This is the Knights of Templar tunnel.
and this is the Pisan part of the old port.
We walked through the street level, in the Muslim village through neighborhoods and markets.
We had lunch in Acco and everyone tried some of the local food. Great hummus and fresh pita bread, olives, pickled eggplant, cucmber and tomato salads, falafel, and mint lemonade. So much vegetarian food!
After Acco, we drove almost to the border with Lebanon to Rosh Hanikra. This is the actual border:
Rosh Hanikra was so beautiful. Blue ocean and white sandstone cliffs.
We took the steepest cable car in the world down from the top of the cliffs to the sea.
The ocean is very deep where it meets the montains, so these super cool caves have developed over millions of years.
This was our last stop in Israel, so we headed back to port. We covered a lot of ground in 48 hours and saw so many unforgettable things. This will go down as one of the most memorable places we have ever been.
Next is a sea day so we get a chance to rest up and then we will be on the Greek island of Crete.