24 Hours in Haifa

Haifa is Israel's 3rd largest city. It is situated in the north of Israel and has beautiful beaches. So right before Christmas I took the husband for his birthday to spend 24 hours in this amazing city. What can you do in 24 hours? Come and see for yourself!

We opened the trip with a nice picnic right on the beach. Since it was December, the beach was almost deserted and we had it all to ourselves. The weather, by the way, was great! After the picnic we drove to the hotel we chose, Templers Boutique Hotel, which was absolutely superb. Even though we only had 24 hours in the city, we just couldn't resist a loooong nap. Oh, how I miss these kind of naps! After we managed to wake up, we enjoyed the balcony with the amazing view of the Bahai Gardens.

A nice evening stroll brought us to the lovely Wadi Nisnas neighborhood (we'll get back to it later). Most of the restaurants and shops were already closed, but we still enjoyed the great atmosphere.

For dinner we chose Xin Xin restaurant, to remind the Man of our days in China (we lived there for several years and loved the food there). We never heard of this restaurant before, but we read good reviews, and the fact that it is owned by a Chinese family caused us to have high expectations. Too high... The food wasn't good, the service was slow and all in all it was a disappointment. Anyhow, we were'nt going to let some Chinese food to ruin the evening for us, as we only had 18 more hours or so in the city. We walked around the harbour and passed by cute pubs and bars, but since we were tired (from the long nap, of course), we decided to return to the hotel. Right next to the hotel, we stopped for a night snack and beer in the lovely restaurant Fattoush.

Day 2 was very busy. We opened it with a guided tour in the impressive Bahai Gardens. It's a short tour, less than an hour, it's free and no reservations needed.

When the tour was over, we continued again to Wadi Nisnas (I promised you we'll be back, right?). It's an amazing neighborhood, with lovely people, narrow alleys and fantastic food all around (just walk around the market and try everything!).

A smiling face in Wadi Nisnas

After a falafel lunch, we went back to the German Colony, that stood deserted for decades, until it was restored in the 90', and since then became a center of the city's nightlife. We took another guided tour here as well, which was really interesting,

That's it, 24 hours in Haifa are over, we had a great time and we'll be definitely back soon!