Summer in Israel 2013 - Posting # 2
If you read my facebook post from Sunday, I hope this won’t be too repetitive, but I keep these notes for myself to remember where I’ve been and who I’ve met (yes I do refer back and reread them from time to time).
We did a lot today. We headed for Haifa. We started by driving to Santa Marius, the site at the top of Mt Carmel in Haifa where it is believed Eliyahu defeated the prophets of Ba'al. We were having trouble finding the cave of Eliyahu, so we asked a guy selling watches in front of the church where the cave was. He was very friendly and said “over there across the street there are some stairs that lead to a path - it will take you 10 minutes.” It was a bit of an adventure (I’m writing this Tuesday morning and my thighs are still sore). On the way down we kept wondering when we would find this place (it tooks us about a half hour).
After a few minutes we came on this gravesite - there was no signage to the cave. Then we hiked down mountain to go to the site where Eliyahu prepared for the battle in a cave which is now a small synagogue/holy site for Jews. People come to pray for health or other things there, and there are all kinds of prayer texts mounted on the Mechitza (divider between men and women’s sections and on the walls. We were in no shape to climb back up so we took a cab to the top of the mountain to get back to our car.
We then took kind of a slow driving tour of Haifa (traffic, not scenic) and went to Nahariya to see the town and the beach (town reminds me of Miami Beach in the 70's, the beach has course sand but is lovely (and quiet like Va Beach during the week). we took of our shoes on walked on the rather deserted beach for a few minutes (it was near noon and very hot out, not weather for a casual stroll ,even with a breeze).
We stopped at a great South American Grill restaurant Morganfeld, in Achziv (recommended by Anton Goodman)and we shared a mixed grill plate of two different kinds of steak and chicken and potatoes, onions and sweet potatoes. I give it very high marks. We drove on to Rosh HaNikra (I had never been, in so many visits to Israel) hiked the Grottos, and drove on to meet Mark Goberman, the winemaker at the Achziv Winery at Gesher HaZiv. He is a very small (1500 bottles/year) boutique winery, also an artist who teaches painting. We tasted 4 wines including a dessert wine and his Cab, Merlot and the blend he makes of them are very nice. Neither Abby nor I are dessert wine fans but it was pleasant nonetheless.
On the way back to Binyamina we stopped in Zichron, visited briefly at Carmel and tasted a Reisling and a Cab Franc, both nice. We then found a shop that Dina had recommended and it turns out the owner was a school friend of Abby's. She was a bit shocked by the discovery. Zichron is nice and we enjoyed walking around a bit though we didn’t go into any other shops.
We ended the day sharing a pizza in Pardes Hanna, and then friends of Yossi’s and Dina’s that I’ve met before, Lee Ann and Roul came over and we shmoozed for a while. It was a full and fun day.
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