Haifa and Acre (Akko)

The past couple days we have been exploring the twin cities of Haifa and Acre (Akko) on the northern coast of Israel. Our day in Haifa started with a now familiar Eggad bus ride into the city center, where we missed our stop at the top of the Bahá'í World Center (which consists of consists of the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, the Shrine of the Báb and its gardens on Mount Carmel) and had to jog our way back up many vertical feet along some very steep city streets to the top where our English language tour started at noon. Fortunately, we found enough speed in us to make it in time for the tour. Unfortunately, we entered the gardens at noon at the wrong entrance 100 meters from where we were supposed to meet the guided tour, and didn't realize this until ten minutes after 12pm. By the time we reached the actual tour entrance, we were too late and had to take the Hebrew language tour instead! Seeing the gardens was still a treat though, but we think we missed out on some good Bahá'í history lessons and possibly some promotion of the faith as well.


After locating a highly recommended schwarma restaurant in the city, we caught a bus up the hill to the Israel Institute of Technology, the Technion, where we caught up on some recent research courtesy of the visitor's center, and spent some time relaxing in the student center and ecological gardens. It was pretty interesting to see how much work is being done at this institute, in many different fields of science. Our evening ended with a good meal and beer at the Technion Pub, after which we found out that most buses had stopped running to the city, and all buses had stopped running to Atlit (a very nice taxi driver saved us from spending the night in the bus terminal).

Dinner time. I think we'll catch you up on Acre tomorrow!

- Joe