Life in a Letter: Rosh Hinakra

So today My Beloved's alarm went off, unfortunately for him he wasn't wanting it too, some people wont listen, 'turn off Saturdays', but no that is too much like hard work, so he was woken at stupid o'clock. We breakfasted together, not happy like, its Shabbat so no cappuccino for me. We went to the Business Lounge to blog and check My Beloved's mail then we headed off on our travels.

The GPS was set for Rosh Hanikra and off we went, route 4 all the way, well after we found petrol that is. So we drove in the sunshine through the roads of Israel on our way to the Israel/Lebanon border and Rosh Hanikra. We arrived without incident and paid our shekels for the cable car down to the grottos, firstly we decided to watch their video that gives you information about how the grottos were made by Mother Nature, about the animals living around the area and the explanation of the British tunnels that were quarried during the 2nd world war. The Tunnels took a year to build and connected Haifa, Beirut and Tripoli in Lebanon, 15 bridges were also suspended along the route of the railroad track. In order to prevent the Lebanese taking passage with arms into the territory, fighters of the Carmeli division of the Haganah blew up the bridge suspensed above the big grotto in March 1948.

After watching the video we took ourselves to see the grottos, made thousands of years ago, they began with underground shocks which created the gaps in the rock, this was penetrated by rainwater which melted the chalk rock creating the beautiful phenomenum that we found today. We had been warned to wear wet weather gear because of the sea crashing through the grottos, but today was a glorious day and very little swell, and we were roasting. The grottos were beautiful the colour of the water was a reflection off the algae in the water and on the rocks, the blue was stunning, the rock formation itself, had purples hues again this was due to the algae. We wandered through, around up and down, and eventually came to the end of our tour. We then walked through the tunnel connected the cliffs to the main promenade and basked in the sunshine, fishermen were out with their rods, there was golf carts and bicycles for hire, and there were golf carts type buggies that you peddled.

We took the cable car back to the top of the cliffs and headed for the souvenir shop, I have mislaid my keyring from home, so I know have a lovely one from Israel to keep my new hoose keys on. We left Rosh Hanikra and drove south towards Acco, we arrived there and eventually found a parking space, then we wandered around the old port area, watching and listening to the sounds of the people, shouting and calling, there was fish for sale, and some kind of bean thing, it was cooked in a big paella type dish on the harbour side, and what I find really funny is that people will walk past, put our their hand and just take one, I have seen thing in supermarkets, one guy actually tasted each dried fruit and nut whilst I was standing there, nobody bats an eyelid, but although I was quite interested in these bean like things, which were around the size of a flat chestnut, I just wasn't brave enough to steal one, what if all the other people were actually relatives of the vendor, and as such allowed to steal his wares, I might get stoned, or worse still abused in Hebrew.....

We were going to take our lunch in a very famous restaurant in Acco, I punch it into google and it said it would take 2 hours to walk from where we were or 20 mins in the car, luckily when we got back to the car I decided to check again, I found the name of the street, and off we set, it turns out that where we were in the harbour is on one side of a wall, and where we needed to be was on the other side of the wall, I think google was sending us via Tel Aviv, so five mins later we even managed to find a parking space, and we arrived outside Uri Buri. We had a little while to wait, so decided to call the Buba Daddy and Mumma we chatted with them and caught up and then walked around to Uri Buri.

My Beloved and I decided to share a starter, and it was Rare red shrimp in a chilli and lemon marinade, this dish was a ceviche and it was deliscious, the sing of the chilli infused with the lemon made your taste buds sing, for our main dishes we orderd Crab with cream and seaweed for My Beloved and for myself it was Sea Wolf with chestnut and pumpkin puree, the Sea Wolf was so lush and meaty, for fish that is and the puree was heavenly and so very light. My Beloved said his Crab dish was the best meal he has had since arriving in Israel. I knew it was good because our meal was a very quiet affair, the only other time I see My Beloved that quiet is when he eats Dairy Milk, he sits it on the roof of his mouth and waits for it to melt, if I’m really fed up with his banter I buy him a large bar…..We finished our meal with a Homemade Berrie sorbet and it was so nice that we didn’t feel stuffed after our meal, but we were full.

We headed off to Kiryat Motskin and to Dina and Yefgeni's or Zyeni as Dina calls him, only to find out it was in fact Zheni's birhday, we were treated to Zheni's favourite cake, made by Dina and we passed a lovely few hours in their company, Dina's parents were also there and had bought cakes, home made, I can see I'm gonna have to start baking again, Dina's parents are Korean and speak no English so Dina was our translator for the day. Zheni had been given a guitar by Dina’s parents, and Dina and Jason gave him a stunning new bike, which also has a child seat that slots on and off the back, he is so lucky Kiryat Motskin is so flat, no danger I would get a bike again, not on this mountain.

We eventually took our leave and headed back to the hotel, the boys were in the Business Lounge and Grant was looking decidedly green, something to do with Irish bars and late nights, we chatted and My Beloved caught up with his work mails, then we headed up the street for phone credit, we by-passed all our favourite watering holes tonight as we were both so tired from our adventure to The Grottos of Rosh Hanikra and Acco and an afternoon with friends, so bed time it was one, two three, zzzzzzzzzzzz