Traveling is coffee for the soul.
There are many astonishing and wonderful things in the world, and I like to travel and see them. I am a middle-ageish man and I live in Northeastern Europe. My wife often travels with me, voluntarily. All pictures are taken by me, unless otherwise indicated.
I like to take pictures. I also like people-watching. However, I generally do not enjoy people photography, and I seldom get very good results. Surprisingly, in Israel I did get a few pictures that I consider pretty decent. Maybe it was because everywhere, especially Jerusalem, was so crowded.
A woman looking out of her window in the "White City", Tel Aviv.
Hard-working cooks in a popular Tel Aviv lunch joint. The food they made was tasty.
Birdman, Dizengoff square, Tel Aviv.
Garbage haulers, Jerusalem.
Holy selfie, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem.
A Sniper, Damascus Gate, Jerusalem.
A Camel and a Tourist, Mount of Olives, Jerusalem.
A tourist on Masada (click on the picture for a bigger panorama).
The walls of Acre provide great views over the Mediterranean Sea.
Acre is a relatively small city on the Galilean coast, in northern Israel. As far as we know, people have lived in the area since approximately 3000 BC. The city and its inhabitants have been cursed with a strategical location. Acre has been conquered, besieged and bombed:
by Alexander the Great, about 332 BC
by Caliph Umar's army in 636
by the Crusaders in 1104
by Sultan Saladin in 1187
by the Crusaders again in 1191
by the Mamluk sultan's troops in 1291
by Napoleon in 1799
by English, French and Austrian navies in 1840
and by many others
Acre is probably most famous for Crusaders, at least in the so-called Western World. The biggest attraction in the town is the Crusader Castle, known as the Citadel. To be precise, only the underground parts date from the Crusaders' time. The Ottoman Empire, who ruled Acre from the 16th Century until the First World War, had a more modern fortress constructed on the foundations of the crusader-built Citadel. The bloody, noisy and gunpowder-smelling history of the city is presented to the visitor by means of modern technology: a device and earphones are given to every visitor, and it automatically explains the history of the site on a chosen language. Films explaining life (and death) in Acre are projected to old walls, and sometimes floors.
The system works, but in my opinion it controlled the visitor's experience maybe too much, limiting curiosity and spontaneous interest. My device worked well, but it seemed that some others experienced malfunctions, which causes annoyance and frustration. That said, I'm sure the museum staff is happy to help and, if needed, exchange a non-functioning device to a working one. The audio clips themselves are well executed. A highlight for me was the story of Napoleon's siege of Acre, presented as a dialogue between a French and an Ottoman soldier.
The king of Jerusalem with his entourage.
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The Crusaders' bathroom was known as the latrine.
There are many other historical sights in Acre, in addition to the Citadel. A Crusader-built tunnel runs under the city center, a small but charming local history museum is situated in the wall fortifications, and there's a restored hamam spa from Ottoman times. The visitors to the hamam are provided with similar guide devices as in the Citadel. In my opinion, here the application is not as good as in the castle: the deluge of stories and information may feel overwhelming, and the video screens divert attention from the beautiful building and interesting objects.
Bathers in the hamam.
The masseur at work.
Acre is not only about museums. It is fun to get lost on the bazaar alleys, and walk on the city walls, taking in the views of the Mediterranean and the city of Haifa over the bay. The historic center of Acre is surrounded by the sea from three sides, and the breeze often keeps it nicely cool - the Israeli climate is a bit too hot for our northern tastes.
The Blue Mediterranean.
Napoleon's army (if I remember correctly) left this cannon on the Acre walls.
In Israel, nothing is ever far away. It's easy to take a day trip to Acre from Tel Aviv or Haifa by local train. The city is completely different from modern Tel Aviv or sacred and chaotic Jerusalem. One of the fascinating things about Israel is that a different reality is always just around the corner, or not more than a 30-minute train ride away.
The Acre Railway Station is a short walk away from the Old Town. On the way there are, among other things, some eccentric artwork, like these disco deer and storks.
The warlike past of Acre is very visible in the town, as are the tensions of today - there's no escaping them in Israel. But, when sitting in a waterfront restaurant, looking at the turquoise water and an old man teach fishing to his grandchildren, it is easy to forget unpleasant things and, for a moment, to concentrate on the beautiful.
Today is the Good Friday of Eastern Christianity, and countless Christians wander all around the city in the footsteps of Jesus.
Today is the seventh day of the Passover, and countless Jews wander to the Western Wall to pray.
Today is Friday, the holy day of Islam, and countless Muslims wander to the mosques.
The salesmen, who serve no other master than Capital - at least when their shops are open - part everyone of their money, the believers and non-believers alike.
There's a sniper positioned in a window above the Damascus gate. He looks like he's about 19 years old.
On the other side of the gate there's a small cafe, with a picture of the Patriarch of Alexandria on the wall. Under his gaze the owner serves everyone, his Muslim neighbors, Finnish tourists, Ethiopian pilgrims an Israeli soldiers alike, in the same loud and friendly way, like his ancestors did when the Ottomans, or the Crusaders, or king Solomon ruled the city.
A most endearing old English gentleman welcomes us to the site of Jesus' grave. This is a different place from the other Jesus' grave we visited yesterday. There the monks took selfies with their cellphones in the Holy Sepulchre.
Slogans are chanted on Nablus road - a riot! Should we run away? Where to? But it is not a protest after all, just a shopkeeper, even louder than the others.
On the Western Wall children are more interested in chasing the pigeons than in the fact that they are in the focal point of the most volatile political crisis in the World.
In the evening three young men haul garbage on a cart, powered only by their muscles, shouting and joking at each other and passersby, past shops that sell overpriced trinkets to pilgrims, exactly like other young men did two thousand years before them.
The waiters in an Armenian restaurant are wearing t-shirts with a picture of suffering Christ, the Crown of Thorns on his head.
In the city museum there is a small Egyptian clay statue, more than 3000 years old. It bears an inscription: "Cursed be Jerusalem".
