Haifa is the third city of Israel, built on the slope of Mount Carmel above a deep-water port, and it has a reputation for coexistence between Jewish and Arab residents that other cities do not.
The Bahai Gardens
Nineteen terraces descending a kilometre down the mountainside, centred on the golden-domed Shrine of the Bab, the burial place of the herald of the Bahai faith. The gardens are geometric, immaculate and maintained by volunteers from around the world. They are a UNESCO World Heritage site together with the Bahai buildings in Akko. Free guided tours descend the terraces at fixed times; modest dress required.
Mount Carmel and the German Colony
The Louis Promenade at the top gives the view over the bay to Akko and Lebanon. The German Colony below, built by the Templers, a Protestant sect from Württemberg, in the 1860s, is a straight street of stone houses aligned exactly on the shrine, now full of restaurants. Wadi Nisnas, the Arab quarter, has the market and the best hummus arguments in the country.
Akko
Twenty kilometres north, Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Ottoman town, with its Khan al-Umdan caravanserai, al-Jazzar Mosque and covered souk, sits directly on top of the crusader city, whose vaulted halls, refectory and secret tunnel were excavated and can be walked underground. Akko held out against Napoleon in 1799. Eat fish at the harbour and hummus at Said, which closes when the pot is empty.
Rosh Hanikra
At the Lebanese border, white chalk cliffs fall into the sea and the waves have cut a system of grottoes reached by the steepest cable car in the country. The tunnels of the abandoned Haifa to Beirut railway run beside them.
Carmel and the caves
The Carmel range holds the Nahal Me'arot caves, occupied for 500,000 years by both Neanderthals and early modern humans and inscribed by UNESCO for what they show about human evolution. The Druze villages of Daliyat al-Karmel and Isfiya on the ridge are known for their hospitality and their food.
Practicalities
Haifa is an hour from Tel Aviv by train and has the only underground funicular railway in Israel, the Carmelit. Uniquely in Israel, some buses run on Shabbat.
Coexistence
Haifa is routinely described as the mixed city that works, with Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and Bahai communities and a long tradition of joint municipal politics. The Holiday of Holidays festival each December marks Hanukkah, Christmas and Ramadan or Eid together in Wadi Nisnas. Residents will tell you the reputation is partly earned and partly a story the city tells about itself.