Herod the Great built Caesarea between 22 and 10 BCE on a coast with no natural harbour, naming it for Augustus. His engineers sank hydraulic concrete underwater to create a breakwater enclosing an artificial port, a technique that was not matched again for many centuries. The city became the Roman capital of Judaea, and Pontius Pilate governed from here — a stone inscription found in the theatre in 1961 is the only physical evidence of his existence.
The site
The national park includes the theatre, still used for concerts, the hippodrome along the shore, Herod promontory palace with a swimming pool cut into the rock, bath houses with mosaics, and the crusader city built on top with its walls and gate. Much of the harbour lies underwater and can be dived on a marked trail, the first underwater archaeological park in the world.
The aqueduct
North of the site, a Roman aqueduct runs along the beach on arches, built under Herod and doubled under Hadrian to bring water from springs 10 km away. It is free to visit, sits directly on the sand and is the most photographed thing on this coast.
Beit Shean
Inland, in the Jordan valley, the largest excavated Roman city in Israel: a colonnaded main street, a theatre for 7000, bath houses and public latrines, all flattened by an earthquake in 749 and left where they fell, which is why so much survives. Allow half a day.
Megiddo
A tell of 26 superimposed cities on the pass controlling the route from Egypt to Mesopotamia, fought over for four thousand years, with Solomonic gates, a Canaanite temple and a water tunnel cut through rock to a spring outside the walls. The Greek rendering of its name, Armageddon, comes from Revelation. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site with Hazor and Beersheba.
Zichron Yaakov and the coast
Between Caesarea and Haifa, Zichron Yaakov was founded in 1882 with Rothschild money and has the Carmel Winery and a restored main street. Nearby, the beaches at Dor and Habonim are the best on the northern coast.
Practicalities
Caesarea is 45 minutes from Tel Aviv and easily combined with Haifa. All these sites are run by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and a multi-site pass pays for itself after three visits.
Herod
Herod the Great was a client king who built on a scale nobody in the province matched again: Caesarea, the expansion of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Masada, Herodium and the port here. He was also a ruler whose family he had executed and whose reputation, largely shaped by Josephus and the Gospels, has never recovered. The engineering is undisputed.