Caesarea, Israel

Caesarea is an ancient, well kept ruin that was built by King Herod sometimes between 22 and 10 BC, after King herod died it became the local roman capital. and Pontius pilate lived here from AD 26 to AD 36.
In AD 640 the Arabs took over the city and held it until AD 1101 were it was taken over by the crusaders. In 1261 King Louis IX of france took over the city, but lost the city to Mamluk sultan Beybars, who destroyed the city, and it was a ruin for more than 600 years.
In 1878 a group of refugees from bosnia moved in and was living there until 1948.
It is a great place if you have kids because the can run around, and there is plenty of space. the picture below is the ocean view from the place

There are plenty of oppotunities to find mosaic when you walk around.

Some more beautiful mosaic, that you can find many places around in caesarea

The following pictures are from the outer wall, that surrounds the "city"

mahane yehuda market, jerusalem, Israel

I love markets, and I always try to visit the local one when I visit a place, just by luck I dropped into the mahane yehuda market in Jerusalem, and that is a colour full tour, there one can buy all kinds off food, fruits, coffee, cakes, and many other things, it is not one of thoose turist traps where things are made for the turist, this is where the locals go for a coffe, eating or shopping.
When you walk through the market there are plenty of shops offering you to taste, and you should, because in this way you get surprise and mayby you taste something you haven't before.
I visited the market whith my family (wife and our two kids) and enjoyid a couple of hours there, we had a coffe and some cakes in a small shop.

The coffe and cake shop

Even that they don't understand english very well, ther eis no problem in pointing and showing whith your fingers how many cakes, fruits or whatever you want, they take the time you need to buy what you want.

Even if you don't want to buy anything, you should go, and just feel the atmosphere, here you can see a couple of pictures I took when we were there.

The market is most busy on fridays, and has more than 250 small shops, and you can read more about the history of the palce, and the sorrounding here at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahane_Yehuda_Market

And here is a video that show the place:

Have a nice travel

Per

The dead sea, Israel 2012

December 2012 we spent tree nights at the dead sea, in Israel.
We had been there in 1999 and tried to find the same hotel, but it seems that most of the hotels had change names, and new hotels had been built, so We found one hotel that sounded good from what the described on there homepage.
That hotel was Leonardo Privilige , which is an All-inclusive hotel, and the reason for choosing this hotel was that, they wrtie that it is only a footstep away from the dead sea, and we wanted to walk straight from the hotel to the sea.
It was very easy to find the hotel, but finding an available parking spot was not that easy, but that was not a problem we were not going to use the car, so walking a bit from the parked car to the hotel was not a proble.
The check-in gave a small problem, we have booked an junior suite through hotels.com, and the person at the check-in could not find any stamp in our passport (at the airport we asked not to have one, which is quite normal if you later want to travel to an arabic country). I explained to the guy that, we had the same issue when picking up our rental car at the airport, and they solved this be making me sign a form stating that I was not an Israelien citisen, (if you are you have to pay the 20% tax). He did seem to have heard about this before, and after long discussion, he agreed that he would call hotels.com and ask if they would agree to pay.
So we got our keys and went to the room, but got very disappointed, the hotel was very dirty, and not well kept, there were scratches all over the walls, in the corridor, the carpent was dirty, the furnitures in the room was looking very much used. Then we took a walk around to see the rest of the hotel, and it was in the same state, even the furnitures at the pool. We then examined how to get to the beach, which we had understood was a beach that belonged to the hotel, it was not, they use the public beach 10 minutes walk form the hotel, and they provide you with free towels, and the pay the use of furnitures, and have a shuttle bus that drives you every 20 minutes.
So in all this was not exactly what we were looking for, but decided to get some food, and since it was and all inclusive we went to the restaurant, and wow that was an amazing buffet, of all kinds of very nice food, and the all four of us enjoyed the food very much.
After the very nice dinner we took a walk, to the beach, and discovered that there was a hotel about 600 meters away, that was placed at the beach, and is was part of the same chain of hotels. So we went over there to see how that hotel was, and that was exaclty what we were looking for, so we asked if they had any available rooms, and they did have for the coming days.

Wiew from the first hotel, you ca nsee th second hotel in the background

Wiev from the first hote

So they day after we went to talk whit the manager of the first hotel, and she helped us move to the other hotel, free of charge ! we were so happy, and got a nice room, with a view to the sea, from the 6th floor. The hotel is called Leonardo Club and is also an all-inclusive hotel.

Last time we were at the dead sea, we visitted a mud bath but it was at the top of the dead sea, in the west bank area, and we could not take our rental car to that area :-( so we decided to drive by the cost to see if there was some other place, and found one place at Ein Gedi where they charge 80 per. person, which we thought was a bit to much, since we were 4 people, so we drove back, since it started to be late (and soon dark) and pasted by Massada but they were closing down for the day, we had been up there before, and it has an impressive view.

The beach at the Leaonardo Club Hotel

The Pool area at the Leaonardo Club Hotel

The Pool area and beach at the Leaonardo Club Hotel

The beach at the Leaonardo Club Hotel

The beach at the Leaonardo Club Hotel

The beach at the Leaonardo Club Hotel

The hotel to the left is the Leonardo club hotel

The dead see, in the morning

Walk at the dead sea

Dea Sea

Leonardo Club Hotel, Dead Sead, Israel

So if you are planning to go there, it is a good idea to examine the hotel on the internet before, but I'm sure you are going to have a great time, and it is and impressive feeling to float in the salty dead sea.

Per