Visiting Acre (Akko) – More Pictures

This is going to be a bit of a funny post and I don’t mean haha funny. It’s about family, holidays, and traveling. But it’s also about politics. If you don’t feel like doing a lot of reading, just scroll down for the pictures…

Acre has been on our list of places to visit with the kids for a while now. With IsraeliDad having been under the weather, we kept postponing and finally planned to go in Sukkot. This gorgeous town used to be the capital of the crusaders, so there’s plenty of crusaders sight seeing to be done, including the famous recently excavated Knights’ Halls, underground Templar caves and tunnels, museums, and just the Old City and the ancient harbor. It’s been a while since we last visited, about 3 years, and we thought this would be a fun day for the kids, walking in the foot steps of real knights and paladins.

Then came Yom Kippur, and riots broke out in Acre. This is a rare occasion in Israel, in mixed Arab-Jewish towns like Acre, and shows us all just how fragile the co-existence is. I’ll save my fingers the need to type the whole story, and just refer you to:

a link where you can read all about it.

Bottom line, it all ended with lots of shattered glass, fires, and damage to cars and buildings, but fortunately no one was killed. I guess you could look at the full half of this glass, and focus on the many incidents during the riots where moderates on both sides tried to calm things down and prevented further escalation. Either way, economic damage was severe, with the national art festival of Acre being cancelled and the surge of tourism so typical of the holiday of Sukkot literally drying up to nothing.

IsraeliDad wanted us to go and visit, and in our tiny way help restore normality and encourage the local commerce (especially since there have been calls to boycott Arab merchants). I confess, I was scared. I mean, the weekend papers were talking about a war zone, hardly the place to take two young kids to. But IsraeliDad phoned the tourist information center and they assured us that everything was quiet. Very quiet even, as in no tourists coming… So we went.

We had an absolutely wonderful day out with the kids. Just gorgeous. There was a clearly increased presence of police and border patrol soldiers in the mixed neighborhoods, but within the walls of the old quarter we didn’t the police except in their designated stations (and I noticed at least some of them were Arabs). The general response to our presence was one of mild surprise. I think I may have noticed a few less than favorable looks by some youngsters by the mosque, but other than that, everyone seemed friendly enough. In fact, several people that IsraeliDad was talking to, went on and on about how important it is to regain normality. “We are brothers and should always be in peace,”  an elderly fisherman in the market said, hugged IsraeliDad and offered us free fish (which we politely refused, explaining we can’t very well be walking with fish around on a hot day, touring the sights ).

We made a point of spending some money locally on this day trip. We bought the kids everything they wanted, which essentially meant soft drinks, ice cream, snacks, toys… oh and two servings of pomegranate juice for us! This being the season, there were pomegranate juice sellers in every street corner. Lots of fruit, all ready for the visitors, and only us two to drink it all. It was sad, but we did do our best and had as much as we could!

Anyway, way too many words in this post by now, so I’ll switch to pictures from here (you can click on them for a larger version) -

Pomegranate juice anyone? Conversation is on the house.

Approaching the Knights Halls visitors center – those trees with the fountain in the middle look like something out of a fairy tale, and helped put the kids in the right mood.

Entering the complex maze of the crusaders’ citadel and the knights Halls. Think Name of the Rose and The Da Vinci Code.

They had some massive pillars in the dining hall:

The kids really dug the Crusaders latrines – medieval toilets! Of course, once Dan noticed them, he really, but I mean really, had to pee. So we had to rush off and find a more modern bathroom for him to use.

If you’re wondering why I’m not telling you more about the place… here’s your answer: The guy at the visitors center said we don’t need one of these recorded guides for the kids. Well, he was wrong. Ron thinks that lectures about medieval times are “da thing” to listen to. I never got to hear anything – he took over my guide!

Nothing quite like playing Indiana Jones and walking through a tight, narrow and claustrophobic thousand years old tunnel! Let me tell you, the crusaders were short thin people.

I love taking pictures at souvenir shops. This one you simply have to walk through, once you leave the Knights’ Halls. The perfect tourists trap, but we just took some pictures.

We ended up getting the kids their own knights armors and swords. “Careful now! You’re going to behead Daddy!”

Old Napoleon Bonaparte left behind a few cannons on top of the city wall, which are just the perfect ride for a couple of young knights!

Strolling through the old quarter’s market:

We finally found the entrance to the famous Templar tunnel that takes you from within the old city out to the harbor. It’s a nice underground walk, with water running on both sides of the footpath:

Views from the top of the sea wall:

Ok, lots of words, lots of pictures, time to wrap up this long post with a call to everyone visiting Israel, or living in Israel: Go visit Acre!

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