A few years ago, we watched the sunset in India, while sitting on the sand dunes. We did not know that we were sitting on the Pakistan/India border -- until we were already there and our guide “mentioned” it. Today, we walked through the grottoes in Rosh Hanikra. We parked the car at the barbed-wire gates of the Lebanon/Israeli border. We watched the water splashing against the rocks with a military vessel at anchor nearby. (More about this site later.)
On the way to Haifa our first stop was Caesarea National Park. This included several wrong way, dead-end drives to find the entrance – easily marked – in Hebrew. The park extends from a Roman theatre to a Crusader city. It includes a Byzantine square, a Herodian amphitheatre, promontory palace, bathhouse and a network of streets. The theatre is the most ancient found in Israel with two seating areas. There was an excellent introductory film (which we usually do not enjoy), which allowed us to zoom through the site.
Then a lovely drive up a one lane-road to the pinnacle of a hill brought us to Ein Hod, a colony of painters, sculptors and other artists. It is an idyllic setting with stone houses built on the hillside along a winding street and sweeping views of the Mediterranean in the distance. It felt like walking in an outdoor sculpture garden throughout. We stopped in a few studios and watched and talked with the artists. This small village of 135 families has a wonderful Argentinean restaurant where we chose one of several different rib dishes from the slow grill.
When we arrived in Haifa we stopped at the top of Mt. Carmel and took photos of the Baha’i Shrine gardens : nineteen landscaped, circular terraces that fill the slope from the top to the bottom of the hill. The shrine is a brilliantly gilded dome and is the world center for the Baha’i faith (its central belief is the unity of mankind). Because of construction, gardening and their single tour each day, we were not able to see the little peek you are allowed inside.
The next day our guide took us first to the old city of Akko, a mix of mosques, markets and the hugest, vaulted Crusader ruins (many of them underground). The El-Jazzar Mosque is one of the most magnificent in Israel. Ahmed el-Jazzar was allegedly so cruel, he was called “the Butcher.” One of the museums we toured here was the Museum of the Underground Prisoners. The prison was later used by the British to imprison the top members of the Jewish resistance in 1947. A prison breakout was later a dramatic moment in Leon Uris’s novel Exodus. There is also an amazing Templar Crusader Tunnel, an underground passageway that connected the port to the palace. (As often happens, this extraordinary site was found by accident after a local woman complained about a blocked sewer.) Stories abound.
Well, back to the Grottoes. Not that we drove back, this is the site we started with in our blog today.
Rosh Hanikra is a beautiful demonstration of the strength of the sea as it sculpts the mountains. They are breathtaking beautiful. We descended the mountain in a cable car. (They said it was the steepest cable car ride in the world.) The cliffs are all white except for black spots throughout: flint stones formed from seaweed and sea creatures that are discharged from the sea and then consolidate to form the flint stones.
Within the sculpted grottoes, there is a huge opening where the British (with help from workers from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa) built a track for a rail line between Haifa, Beirut and Tripoli in Lebanon. In only one year, they bore the tunnels into the rock, and suspended 15 bridges, over 650 feet. Between 1943 to 1948, the railway served the British military needs. In 1944, Jewish refugees from the concentration camps were also brought to Israel on the train. (They were exchanged for German citizens living in Israel.) However, to prevent the passage of Lebanese weapons and soldiers, Israeli fighters blew up the bridge and sealed the doorway to Israel in 1948. It is now also sealed on the Lebanese side to allow tourists to safely view the grottoes from either side.
The gates above are now the place for entrance into Lebanon and the site where soldiers, dead and alive, are exchanged. These are the reminders of the conflict here. Otherwise, among the people living and working, you see Arabs and Israelis working, living and playing and eating together.
No comments:
Post a Comment