Haifa: the Beautiful! (Haifa)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	Haifa
Date:	04/05/06 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bahai, Carmelite, Cable - Car and more

Disadvantages: Not terribly touristy (which could be an advantage), not all that much to see

Haifa isn't the best known city in Israel, but it is the third largest city and despite my love for Jerusalem, if I had to choose another place to live, then Haifa would be it. Besides it being built around Mount Carmel, it also touts one of the most beautiful sites that Israel has to offer - the Bahai Temple and Gardens. But there's more to Haifa than just that - unfortunately, not a whole lot, but still... let me see if I can pique your interest.

From the bottom upwards:
Haifa is built on a mountain on the sea, and the mountain is located on a small a peninsula near the north of the country. Being surrounded by water, it became a port city, and therefore it has a large shipping industrial area - including a large high-tech park on the western and northern sides. On the eastern side of the peninsula, there is a small bay which also is mostly industrial. More recently, the most western part of Haifa (which is the part that faces the Mediterranean ocean) has introduced a slew of fancy hotels and a large shopping complex to boost the tourist and sea bathing crowds. There's a really nice beach-side area which you can walk along, and the beaches themselves are far cleaner and less crowded than in Tel Aviv. From the beach, there is a cable car that takes you all the way up to the top of the Carmel at the Stella Maris Church. This has been recently renovated so it's quite an attraction.

The lowest part of Haifa is known as 'the city'. Due to its business nature, there's not a whole lot one can do there, besides going to the new shopping and hotel area. However, when you enter Haifa from the south, and you wind your way around towards the port, at one point, you'll reach a large boulevard on your left. If you turn onto that boulevard you'll suddenly see the Bahai Gardens looming up in front of you, with the stunningly beautiful Bahai Temple at its pinnacle. In the daytime, the gardens are rich and lush and colourful to look at. In the evening, it's all lit up and the Temple sparkles like a jewel. More about that later.

The middle part of Haifa is known as "Hadar" and this is where most of the commercial parts of Haifa are located. There are lots of interesting shops and restaurants there, but they don't really cater to the tourist trade, and are mostly for the locals. Mind you, you'll find plenty of great and inexpensive places to eat there, if you're interested, but there's not all that much of interest there for most tourists.

The top of Haifa is known as "The Carmel". This has more tourist places to visit, such as the Haifa University Towers, the Technion (Israel's University of Technology), the Hecht Museum at the University (mostly antiquities and archeology), the Haifa Museum of Art, the Haifa Music Center, the refurbished German Colony (which is an architectural and historical experience) and as I mentioned before, the Stella Maris Church, which is actually a monastery of the Carmelite order (can you guess where they got their name?). If you walk across the road from Stella Maris, you'll see a statue of Mary, which stands in front of Abdallah Pasha's villa. Not far from there is a place considered to be Elijah the Prophet's cave.

Just running around the Carmel area is fun. There are lots of great restaurants there (including my favourite Chinese one), and to the south, there's a pedestrian garden that runs along one side of the hill which gets filled in the evenings with people wandering from one end to the other. During the summer, artisans put up their booths along the edges and sell their wares while music is played by all sorts of musicians - just lovely. And since Haifa is quite high, the summer evenings are usually dry and cool compared to the hot sunny days. There's also a large park right at the top of the Carmel with an open-air stage that has concerts most summer evenings, and even if you can't get a seat, you can walk along the street and hear most of what's being played.

Moving between the top and bottom:
Since Haifa is on a hill, you may find that driving is a bit precarious, what with winding roads and very limited parking. However, if you don't want to drive, there are buses that will take you anywhere you want to go, as well as very good taxis. Of course, if none of that appeals, I've already mentioned the cable-car from Stella Maris to the beach area. But if you want, you can also go from the city to the Carmel in only 8 minutes by taking the Carmelite. No, I don't mean being carried on the back of a nun - what I'm talking about is a funicular subway, which is probably one of the few of its kind in the world. This fun and interesting way to get from one point to another was opened in 1959, and while it was closed for several years due to disrepair and lack of funds to fix it, it's now open again for your convenience and enjoyment. The Carmelite has six stations - the lowest one being "the city" and the top most being the Carmel.

Since this is a subway, it goes totally underground. And because it climbs a hill, it's very step-like in its build, traveling at an average of an 8o angle. The tunnel is 2000 meters long, and climbs a total of 268 meters from the city to the Carmel and travels an average of only 28 kilometers per hour. Before the renovation, there were drivers on these but now they're totally automatic and computerized. Throughout the tunnel there is only one set of tracks except for a spot in the middle where there are two sets. It is at this point that the two trains (one going up and the other going down, of course) pass each other on their journey. If you're ever in Haifa, I recommend you go on the Carmelite just for the experience, even if you don't need to get from one spot to another via this type of transport.

Just a bit more on the Bahai Temple and Gardens:
This is one of the few centers of the Bahai religion, and the architecture is reminiscent of the Taj Mahal in India. The tours in the gardens and temple are informative and eye opening re a belief system that is not widely known and the gardens provide an amazingly beautiful and aesthetic experience to the visitor. There's a marble building with a gold dome that is the center of the buildings and the terraces slide down the mountain in total grandeur, including man-made waterfalls and sculptures made from marble as well as from the flora. The whole thing was renovated and re-opened in 2001 and while it was impressive before then, now it is totally amazing. You'd just have to see it to believe it.

General extra stuff:
I've mentioned transportation and places to see. I also mentioned that there are hotels at the west side on the beach. There are also some big (read: fancy) hotels at the top of the Carmel, as well as lots of smaller ones dotted throughout the city. You can find a place to stay in any price range, from as low as US$50 all the way up to almost US$ 200 (or more) per night at hotels like the 5 start Dan Panorama on the top of the Carmel! There's even a Carmel Forest Spa you can stay at (for well over $300 per night).

All Over (or overall):
Haifa is just a really lovely place to visit. While it may not be as exciting as Tel Aviv, or as rich in history as Jerusalem, it really has lots to offer and lovely places to visit. (What's more, the drivers in Haifa are Israel's absolute best - in fact, it's the only place in all of Israel where the drivers will actually stop to let you cross at a zebra crossing - seriously!) Of course, when you're on the Carmel, the climate is cooler than lower down, and on a hot summer night, a walk around the Carmel will be refreshing. All in all, Haifa is really a lovely place to visit, and if I couldn't live in Jerusalem, that's where I'd be living today. The Bahai gardens are breathtaking, the cable-car and Carmelite are fun ways to get from top to bottom and back, and the atmosphere is warm and friendly. No, it's not perfect but it certainly is worth a day or two of your visit. Despite its being less touristy than other places in Israel, I'll still give it five stars and highly recommend it to any visitor to Israel.

Thanks for reading!

Davida Chazan © May, 2006

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Technical Stuff:
By the way, no one is totally sure where the name "Haifa" came from, but one theory is that it came from the word "HaYafah" which is Hebrew for "The Beautiful" - and hense the title of this review.

The best site I could find about Haifa is this one
http://www.tour-haifa.co.il/indexEng.phtml and I think it will give you everything you need to know about what to see and do in Haifa.

This little site is mostly about the Carmelite: http://www.subways.net/israel/haifa.htm

This is also a nice little site: http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~bazlov/israel/ha ifa.html

Another site of interest is this one:
http://www.inisrael.com/tour/haifa/index.html

For those worried about the safety of Israel, I can tell you that statistics will show that you have a hugely better chance of being hurt in a car accident (even in the UK) then you do of being in a terrorist attack in Israel.
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Summary: Israel's third largest city, and a real gem of a place to visit.