Ancient Copper Mines

About a half-hour north of the resort town of Eilat, is Timna, the Valley of the Ancient Copper Mines, a 50-year-old archaeological find that was the site of copper mining from as far back as the sixth millennium B.C. Extensive remains of human activity during early periods are still visible in the rugged hills. There is evidence of copper mining in shafts and galleries and copper smelting in furnaces of various types, and there are remains of camps and several cult sites, including an Egyptian mining sanctuary.

The Galilee

Acre or Akko is an ancient port in the northwest corner of The Galilee on the shores of the Mediterranean. One of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world, its history goes back more than 3,500 years. Its longest occupiers—the Crusaders, the Muslims and the Ottoman Turks—left the biggest footprint in the city and today, visitors can see the remnants of the Crusader culture with the restored Knights Hospitallers Halls or fortress in the subterranean Crusader city. It’s subterranean because when it fell to the Muslims in 1291, over the succeeding centuries, the Muslims and Ottoman Turks built on top of the Crusader city ruins.

Acre’s most prominent sites include ruins from the Hellenistic-Roman period and buildings from the Crusader and Ottoman periods, including:

• The Jazar Mosque, the buildings of the Order of Saint John.
  
• The subterranean Crusader city, Khan Al Omdan—a kind of market where merchants brought goods from the rest of The Galilee by camel caravan.
  
• The Turkish Baths (which now house the municipal museum).
  
• The Baha’i Temple—the founder of the Baha’i faith lived in Acre and is buried just outside of the city.
  
• The Knights Templar Tunnel.

A port city that at one time rivaled Constantinople and Alexandria, today’s visitors to Acre have to settle for the large marina and a small fleet of fishing boats. But there’s plenty of recreational watersports available, as well as a good selection of hotels, restaurants and bars.