Middle East - Anthony Ham [244]
Abu Christo ( 991 5653; Sea Promenade; mains 50-90NIS; 10am-midnight)A local seafood favourite, this restaurant has been dishing fish for nigh on 60 years. Eat out beside the waves on the lovely terrace in summer, and ask for the recommended catch of the day.
Hummus Said ( 6am-2pm) Yet another of those places touted as Israel’s best hummus producer, this local institution, very much entrenched in the souq, doles up that much-loved Middle Eastern dip to throngs of visitors. For 20NIS, you’ll fill up on salads, pickles, pitta and a delicious portion of the ubiquitous beige stuff.
Leale al-Sultan (Khan as-Shawarda; 9am-midnight) Traditional Middle Eastern coffeehouse, popular with locals, sporting sequined cushions, colourful wall hangings and backgammon tables. A Turkish coffee costs 5NIS, and a nargileh to go with it, 10NIS.
There are several felafel places around the junction of Salah ad-Din and Al-Jazzar Sts, serving up portions of felafel for around 5NIS.
Getting There & Away
Akko’s bus terminal and train station lie about a 1.7km or 20-minute walk from the main entrance to the Old City. For Haifa, buses 251 and 252 depart frequently (15NIS, 30 to 50 minutes). The most pleasant way to travel between Akko and Haifa (13NIS, 28 minutes), however, is by train along the beachfront railway. Trains pass in both directions around three times per hour. Tel Aviv trains run twice an hour between 1am and 10pm (35NIS, 1½ hours).
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GALILEE
With its lush scenery and religious heritage, Galilee’s green valleys, verdant forests, fertile farmland and, of course, the Sea of Galilee, all provide relief from the drier lands to the south. It’s a popular weekend getaway for southerners, as well as a firm favourite for those on the Christian tour-group itinerary, who come to Galilee to follow in Jesus’s footsteps, except, of course, on that one particularly watery walk.
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NAZARETH
04 / pop 64,600
If you’ve already been to Bethlehem, don’t expect something anywhere near as bucolic and serene when you pull up (probably not on a donkey) at the childhood home of Jesus. Modern Nazareth is chaotic, fume-filled and the largest Arab city in Israel. But still, peel away that traffic-clad exterior and you’ll find charming vestiges of the past: the crumbling mansions of the Old City, the myriad churches scattered through town, and the colourful old souq. Armed with a portion or two of local kunafa (syrupy curd cheese pastry) to provide energy for all those sights, you might just find that you’d like to stick around after all.
Orientation & Information
Most sites of pilgrim interest are concentrated around the Old City, centring on Paul VI St and El-Bishara St (also called Annunciation or Casa Nova St). On El-Bishara St, just above the Paul VI intersection, is the helpful tourist office ( 657 0555; nazarethboard.org; 8.30am-5pm Mon-Fri, 8.30am-2pm Sat).
Sights
Nazareth’s revered Roman Catholic Basilica of the Annunciation (El-Bishara St; 8.30-11.45am & 2-5.30pm Mon-Sat) is the largest church in the Middle East and stands on the site where Catholics believe the Angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would bear the Son of God. Its rather bland 1969 exterior is redeemed somewhat by remnants of earlier Crusader and Byzantine churches inside the dimly lit ‘lower church’ downstairs.
At the Sisters of Nazareth Convent ( 655 4303; admission by appointment), a school for deaf and blind children just up the street, you can see one of the best examples of a Herodian tomb, a type of tomb sealed by a rolling stone, which lies under the present courtyard. The nearby Church of St Joseph (El-Bishara St; 8.30-11.45am & 2-5.30pm Mon-Sat), built in 1914, occupies the traditional site of Joseph’s carpentry shop, over the remains of a medieval church.
The Al-Balda al-Qadima souq ( 9am-5pm Mon, Tue, Thu & Fri, 9am-2pm Wed & Sat), west of upper El-Bishara St, occupies a maze of narrow streets. In its midst sits the Greek Catholic Synagogue-Church ( 9am-12.30pm & 2-6pm Mon,