A short stay at beautiful old town of Nazareth and we were going westwards. After having our breakfast at the hostel, we drove first to the Crusaders fort at Acre (pronounced Akko) some 40km away.
Once we arrived, managed to parked at the carpark which was quite full. Got the tickets for the visit for the fortress. It was a huge fortress and had many arches in the many spacious empty rooms.
The external areas were just as interesting as the internal with the emblems and flags and the markets. There was also a Templar’s tunnel used by the Templar Knights, those fascinated by this historical period and of course the fascination brought about by the Da Vinci’s code, would like to walk through this tunnel that had animated story telling on its walls.
This port town was also a great place to walk about and explore but we had other places to go to and thus did not spend too much time. Drove to the next place, Bahai Gardens, a short drive away.
We didn’t know what to expect and as the GPS brought us uphill, I had to look for a place to parallel park alongside the road. We weren’t sure of the entrance either and had ended up at the end of the garden in the middle of the hill. But it was ok as the view of Haifa and the Gardens was awesome!
There were specific timings on the opening hours of the inner gardens and it was closed by the time we arrived and only settled for the outer gardens.
The next location was a short drive to a Druze village called Daliyat El-Carmel, the visit recommended by Lonely Planet, a village of ethnic people. As we arrived at an area with different style of buildings and we knew we were in the area, as GPS wasn’t able to give a specific location on Mount Carmel. We parked by the road and walked around till we found what looked like a restaurant and decided to have lunch there.
From the Druze village, we drove southwards towards Caesarea, also a historical attraction that was next to the sea. This was also a very nice place to visit with the sea breeze blowing while we explored the place. I was amazed to see the amphitheatre right next to the waters, first of its kind that I have seen!
Our accommodation Beachfront Hotel for the night was at the city of Tel Aviv and it was an hour drive. As this was a city, it was not a fast drive there since traffic was heavier. I had to go twice around and finally parked at a manned parking space right next to the hotel.
Our hotel room, although small and simple, was facing the nice Tel Aviv beach. The room had a fenced up open space at the front of the room that was opened to the streets! I liked this interesting concept.
After rested enough (really tiring from travelling to so many places), we drove to the old town of Jaffa, hoping to get dinner. It was not easy to get a car park here and we parked at a public carpark space with a few lots left. It was on the slope of a small hill and from there we could see the lighted city of Tel Aviv.
Took a while to explore the small and quiet old town but there weren’t much to see as most places were closed. We also couldn’t get a place to eat and so as we walked to the modern town, we bought some pastries for dinner. Drove back to Tel Aviv and rested for the night.
