DAY 4 : MONDAY 18 JANUARY - OVERNIGHT OUTING, CAESAREA AND HAIFA

Tel Aviv is very nice but there's only so much to do. So we'd hired a car for an overnight trip north along the coast towards the port city of Haifa, via Caesarea, a city built upon Sidonese (ie Lebanese, the border with Lebanon is not far north of Haifa) ruins by the Romans, specifically by King Herod, who named it in honour of Caesar Augustus.

Sadly the weather was taking a turn for the worse, windy more than wet but it certainly justified those coats...

...as Saturday's sparkling blue Sea was whooshing and sloshing about in a most unMediterranean-like manner

but, after the amphitheatre, we mosied damply around the forum, baths, hippodrome

to the mighty walls and gate of the city.

From there we high-tailed it north to Haifa where christmas was still in full swing! 

The gold-domed building on the hill is the Shrine of the Báb, standing in gardens which were given World Heritage Status in 2008, HQ of the Bahá’í Faith and a pilgrimage site. Hopefully we'll see them in daylight tomorrow.