Istanbul to Haifa, Israel

Arrival in Israel

3am comes early. Too early

By 3:35 we are in a cab heading towards SAW International Airport. It takes us 45 minutes speeding and without traffic to get to the airport..

It is warm and sunny when we arrive in Tel Aviv at 9:00am.

Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv is well organized. Unfortunately you cannot say the same for the car rental process. First of all it is really hard to find the kiosk. A worker points us to a place outside the airport. We drag our luggage around God’s green acre to the Europcar office.

It turns out that we have to check in to some obscure, badly signed kiosk in the airport. Another man had done the same thing.

Vince goes to the kiosk and we wait at the Europcar office. The car attendant is very friendly; he makes me a coffee and teaches me how to say “thank you” in Hebrew. (Always the first word I learn when in a new country).

Vince returns rather upset. They charged him all kinds of extra fees. When booking the car in Canada, he was given the option to decline the extra insurance which he did because he is already covered by his credit card and home insurance. They said that doesn’t count in Israel and he has to buy the $12.95 per day 3rd party insurance according to Israel law. That insurance only covers if someone else does damage. He also had to pay a $1,700 deposit in case we did any damage.

The guy that followed Vince that was also renting was having even more troubles with his rental than Vince.

The car attendant suggested we take lots of pictures and videos of the car showing any damage…and we had a lot to take pictures of. Not only was the car dirty it had lots of dents, scratches and cigarette burn holes in the seats (in a no smoking car), Vince says the car’s alignment is off since it pulls to the left…it had probably been in an accident.

TIP: Do your homework and learn about all the extra fees, charges and idiosyncrasies when renting a car in Israel.

Caesarea National Park

We pack up our little Citroën car and head to Caesarea National Park.

Road signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English. The roads so far are in great condition.

Caesarea is where the Roman port city ruins built by King Herod in the first century BC are located. Not only are the ruins Roman, there are also Byzantine and Crusader ruins including an aqueduct, hippodrome, and amphitheater.

Food is a bit of a sticker shock. A carafe of lemonade is $14 CAD. We have a nice lunch at a seaside restaurant on the aqua and blue Mediterranean.

The bright sun makes it hot. We explore for about 3 hours before heading to our apartment in Haifa.

Arrival in Haifa

Haifa is the third largest city in Israel. We are staying high up on a hill in the Carmel area. It takes us quite awhile to find our apartment because it is on a busy street and it was hard to find the numbers. After numerous trips up and down the street in the general area, we finally find it.

We got this place through Bookings.com; two bedrooms with kitchen, livingroom and bathroom for $260 CAD per night. The place is very clean, well stocked with comfortable beds but needs some work on decor.

Funicular to Downtown

After a short rest, we head out for supper. Haifa has the only subway in Israel and the first in the Middle East. It’s an underground funicular (Carmelit) that travels up and down the mountain linking lower Haifa with the top sections. We take the funicular downtown to get dinner. Vince are very excited about the funicular.

Being a Tuesday, downtown is pretty quiet. We walk around and find a restaurant called “Take it Iza”, whose outside tables are filled with people (young and local), it has a good menu so that’s where we eat. The food was awesome (portobello burgers, ravioli and a Philly Sandwich). The service was great as well.

We pick up some groceries and head home. We fall into bed, exhausted.