Pauline
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Trip Plan
Fly Heathrow UK to Ben Gurion Israel.
Pickup rental car.
Zikhron Ya’akov, 1 night in hotel.
Haifa, 7 nights in vacation rental.
Amirim (upper Galilee), 7 nights in vacation rental.
Kfar Blum (Galilee panhandle), 2 nights in hotel.
Jerusalem, 11 nights in vacation rental.
Monday March 4 2019 - Zikhron Ya’akov
We have arrived! We are in our apartment in Haifa, the same one we rented a year ago. Last year we were here for 4 nights, but this time we have the full week.
Our flight on Sunday morning, from Heathrow to Tel Aviv, went well. We spent Saturday night at the Sofitel at Heathrow and were up early for our 8am flight. British Airlines has a new service – checkin and bag check right in the Sofitel! They started this a couple of months ago and the agent said it is very popular. The airport was in that early morning quiet phase where everyone is up early and tired. As we got on the airport transportation to our gate I heard Hebrew being spoken and spotted some Haredi (Orthodox Jews) with their long black coats, black hats and long sideburns, just like in Shtisel. I felt like I knew them a bit after binge-watching the two season recently.
We were in Premium Economy which was comfortable. Ben Gurion Airport, outside Tel Aviv, has been an absolute zoo the last two times we have flown in. This time everything was (mostly) orderly! We were through passport control in 15 minutes instead of spending an hour in a huge unruly crowd like last time.
This was our first time picking up a rental car at the airport and our first time renting from Eldan, a local company. When I booked online I thought I purchased all the insurances, but we had an extra insurance to purchase which drove up the price. Driving here is quite chaotic so I feel like we need all the insurance, even though on our last two trips we have not had any incidents. The good news is that we got a fabulous car – a Suzuki sort of small SUV, but smaller than our VW Golf at home – and it drives really well. Much better than our first trip when Hertz gave us a Honda Civic that squealed when you braked and made a worse noise when you took a corner.
We were out of the airport an hour earlier than I expected. We drove north 1hr 30min to Zikhron Ya’akov, a small town on the coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Amy recommended this town to me on an earlier trip and we never made it there. I had programmed Waze to some random place in the town, thinking the Hebrew letters it was displaying was our hotel, but we eventually found the hotel. We had a nice drive through the town and still reached the hotel before it was dark.
We spent the night at Beit Maimon, which gets great reviews and was nice except for one thing – very strong fragrances from the cleaning products in the rooms and hallways. The first room was horrible but they let me do the sniff test to two other rooms and we found one that was not as bad. Still, I would not stay there again just because of this. I talked to the manager and he said there were no better options for cleaning products and he doesn’t smell it any more.
We walked into the town center (15 mins) in the dark (I bought a new flashlight for this trip) and people were out and about. It is a very cute town with a pedestrian historic area full of shops and restaurants. It has an interesting history too.
From Wikipedia: “Zikhron Ya'akov was founded in December 1882 when 100 Jewish pioneers from Romania, members of the Hibbat Zion movement, purchased land in Zammarin. The families came from Moineşti in Moldavia and a central merit in organising the move belongs to Moses Gaster, scholar and early Zionist. The difficulty of working the rocky soil and an outbreak of malaria led many of the settlers to leave before the year was up.
In 1883, Baron Edmond James de Rothschild became the patron of the settlement and drew up plans for its residential layout and agricultural economy. Zikhron was one of the first Jewish agricultural colonies to come under the wing of the Baron (along with Rishon LeZion and Rosh Pinna), who renamed it in memory of his father, James (Ya'akov) Mayer de Rothschild.”
We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, sharing two starters – hummus and fresh pita, roasted vegetables. Excellent.
It was cool that evening but I only needed a cotton sweater and a scarf when we were out on our walk. It is in the low to mid 60sF during the day in this area, but is supposed to be 10F lower in Amirim where we go next week, so I packed warmer jackets, but we did not need them yet.
The next morning it was sunny and we could appreciate the view from the hotel to the sea. Zikhron sits high up on the end of the Mt Carmel range. The breakfast room was a typical Israeli breakfast – salad (lots of options), tahini, cheeses, bread, fresh orange juice, coffee, and they will make you an omelet if you want.
We checked out and drove 10 minutes to Ramat HaNadiv, memorial gardens built in 1954 with the crypt for the Rothschilds in the center. The gardens are large and we spent an hour walking around them. Very lovely with views to the mountains and the coast. We had planned to spend a couple of hours on the hiking trails nearby where you can visit some Roman ruins but the trails were very muddy so we will leave that for next time. There were big rain storms here recently and everything is still damp. The woman and the information center warned us about the mud and we had a look for ourselves.
We drove down to the seaside, aiming for Tel Dor or Habonim Beach, but the roads to get to the beach were dirt, rutted out and had huge, lake-sized, puddles. We could have left the car somewhere and walked in, but we had all our luggage in the car so didn’t want to do that. This area is very developed, one town after another along the coast, yet there is no paved road to the beach and the coastal paths!
Driving around today made me think of driving in Sicily (Italy). Busy roads with aggressive drivers, a lot of “ramshackle” looking towns with buildings started but not finished (carcasses of buildings), cars parked every which way. In short, the disorder that makes me think happily “I’m not in England anymore”.
We headed north towards Haifa, stopping in Ein Hod, a small artists town just up in the mountains a bit from the road. This place is busy on weekends but was sleepy today. Friday and Saturday are the weekend days in Israel. Today,SundayMonday, is like our Monday Tuesday. We walked all around then decided to push on.
I have read about the Druze towns in the hills near Haifa and we drove to Daliyat al-Karmel to see it. Or we tried. We drove up and up on a winding road to the top of the mountains, then reached a roundabout where it was left for Haifa and right for Daliyat al-Karmel. We went right thinking we would continue through mountains until we got to a pretty Druze village. It was solid town and traffic and people all the way. Intense driving (I was driving and I am an aggressive driver, but these guys put me to shame), lots of traffic. Signs no longer in Hebrew/Arabic/English and now only in Arabic. The town never ended. We probably turned around just before Daliyat al-Karmel, or maybe we were there, but I had enough. Back the way we came, which seemed much shorter on return of course, then to the University of Haifa and down in busy traffic to Carmel, where we are staying.
We checked into the apartment and instead of driving to the larger natural foods shop that I had planned to go to, we walked to a smaller one a few blocks away. Israeli natural foods shops are great – everything we need, plus a few new things to try (Seitan bolognaise sauce, vegan cheese that is good, pretzels). We found a very good bakery on the way back and now we are nicely settled in the apartment. Dinner at home tonight – spaghetti bolognaise! And chocolate rugelach for dessert.
Fly Heathrow UK to Ben Gurion Israel.
Pickup rental car.
Zikhron Ya’akov, 1 night in hotel.
Haifa, 7 nights in vacation rental.
Amirim (upper Galilee), 7 nights in vacation rental.
Kfar Blum (Galilee panhandle), 2 nights in hotel.
Jerusalem, 11 nights in vacation rental.
Monday March 4 2019 - Zikhron Ya’akov
We have arrived! We are in our apartment in Haifa, the same one we rented a year ago. Last year we were here for 4 nights, but this time we have the full week.
Our flight on Sunday morning, from Heathrow to Tel Aviv, went well. We spent Saturday night at the Sofitel at Heathrow and were up early for our 8am flight. British Airlines has a new service – checkin and bag check right in the Sofitel! They started this a couple of months ago and the agent said it is very popular. The airport was in that early morning quiet phase where everyone is up early and tired. As we got on the airport transportation to our gate I heard Hebrew being spoken and spotted some Haredi (Orthodox Jews) with their long black coats, black hats and long sideburns, just like in Shtisel. I felt like I knew them a bit after binge-watching the two season recently.
We were in Premium Economy which was comfortable. Ben Gurion Airport, outside Tel Aviv, has been an absolute zoo the last two times we have flown in. This time everything was (mostly) orderly! We were through passport control in 15 minutes instead of spending an hour in a huge unruly crowd like last time.
This was our first time picking up a rental car at the airport and our first time renting from Eldan, a local company. When I booked online I thought I purchased all the insurances, but we had an extra insurance to purchase which drove up the price. Driving here is quite chaotic so I feel like we need all the insurance, even though on our last two trips we have not had any incidents. The good news is that we got a fabulous car – a Suzuki sort of small SUV, but smaller than our VW Golf at home – and it drives really well. Much better than our first trip when Hertz gave us a Honda Civic that squealed when you braked and made a worse noise when you took a corner.
We were out of the airport an hour earlier than I expected. We drove north 1hr 30min to Zikhron Ya’akov, a small town on the coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Amy recommended this town to me on an earlier trip and we never made it there. I had programmed Waze to some random place in the town, thinking the Hebrew letters it was displaying was our hotel, but we eventually found the hotel. We had a nice drive through the town and still reached the hotel before it was dark.
We spent the night at Beit Maimon, which gets great reviews and was nice except for one thing – very strong fragrances from the cleaning products in the rooms and hallways. The first room was horrible but they let me do the sniff test to two other rooms and we found one that was not as bad. Still, I would not stay there again just because of this. I talked to the manager and he said there were no better options for cleaning products and he doesn’t smell it any more.
We walked into the town center (15 mins) in the dark (I bought a new flashlight for this trip) and people were out and about. It is a very cute town with a pedestrian historic area full of shops and restaurants. It has an interesting history too.
From Wikipedia: “Zikhron Ya'akov was founded in December 1882 when 100 Jewish pioneers from Romania, members of the Hibbat Zion movement, purchased land in Zammarin. The families came from Moineşti in Moldavia and a central merit in organising the move belongs to Moses Gaster, scholar and early Zionist. The difficulty of working the rocky soil and an outbreak of malaria led many of the settlers to leave before the year was up.
In 1883, Baron Edmond James de Rothschild became the patron of the settlement and drew up plans for its residential layout and agricultural economy. Zikhron was one of the first Jewish agricultural colonies to come under the wing of the Baron (along with Rishon LeZion and Rosh Pinna), who renamed it in memory of his father, James (Ya'akov) Mayer de Rothschild.”
We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, sharing two starters – hummus and fresh pita, roasted vegetables. Excellent.
It was cool that evening but I only needed a cotton sweater and a scarf when we were out on our walk. It is in the low to mid 60sF during the day in this area, but is supposed to be 10F lower in Amirim where we go next week, so I packed warmer jackets, but we did not need them yet.
The next morning it was sunny and we could appreciate the view from the hotel to the sea. Zikhron sits high up on the end of the Mt Carmel range. The breakfast room was a typical Israeli breakfast – salad (lots of options), tahini, cheeses, bread, fresh orange juice, coffee, and they will make you an omelet if you want.
We checked out and drove 10 minutes to Ramat HaNadiv, memorial gardens built in 1954 with the crypt for the Rothschilds in the center. The gardens are large and we spent an hour walking around them. Very lovely with views to the mountains and the coast. We had planned to spend a couple of hours on the hiking trails nearby where you can visit some Roman ruins but the trails were very muddy so we will leave that for next time. There were big rain storms here recently and everything is still damp. The woman and the information center warned us about the mud and we had a look for ourselves.
We drove down to the seaside, aiming for Tel Dor or Habonim Beach, but the roads to get to the beach were dirt, rutted out and had huge, lake-sized, puddles. We could have left the car somewhere and walked in, but we had all our luggage in the car so didn’t want to do that. This area is very developed, one town after another along the coast, yet there is no paved road to the beach and the coastal paths!
Driving around today made me think of driving in Sicily (Italy). Busy roads with aggressive drivers, a lot of “ramshackle” looking towns with buildings started but not finished (carcasses of buildings), cars parked every which way. In short, the disorder that makes me think happily “I’m not in England anymore”.
We headed north towards Haifa, stopping in Ein Hod, a small artists town just up in the mountains a bit from the road. This place is busy on weekends but was sleepy today. Friday and Saturday are the weekend days in Israel. Today,
I have read about the Druze towns in the hills near Haifa and we drove to Daliyat al-Karmel to see it. Or we tried. We drove up and up on a winding road to the top of the mountains, then reached a roundabout where it was left for Haifa and right for Daliyat al-Karmel. We went right thinking we would continue through mountains until we got to a pretty Druze village. It was solid town and traffic and people all the way. Intense driving (I was driving and I am an aggressive driver, but these guys put me to shame), lots of traffic. Signs no longer in Hebrew/Arabic/English and now only in Arabic. The town never ended. We probably turned around just before Daliyat al-Karmel, or maybe we were there, but I had enough. Back the way we came, which seemed much shorter on return of course, then to the University of Haifa and down in busy traffic to Carmel, where we are staying.
We checked into the apartment and instead of driving to the larger natural foods shop that I had planned to go to, we walked to a smaller one a few blocks away. Israeli natural foods shops are great – everything we need, plus a few new things to try (Seitan bolognaise sauce, vegan cheese that is good, pretzels). We found a very good bakery on the way back and now we are nicely settled in the apartment. Dinner at home tonight – spaghetti bolognaise! And chocolate rugelach for dessert.
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