North to the Border

By: Rebecca

At the very northern tip of Israel's Mediterranean coastline is a place called Rosh Hanikra. From our balcony on a clear day, we can see the white cliffs marking the Israel-Lebanon border. But despite it's proximity to Haifa, and the fact that Rosh Hanikra is on everyone's must-do list, we had yet to make the trip. 

Having finally made it there last week, we know why everyone says "you have to go to Rosh Hanikra!" Rosh means "head" in Hebrew and Nikra means "cave/cavern" so Rosh Hanikra translates literally to "Head of the Cavern". The main attraction here are the grottoes carved by the sea into the chalk cliffs over thousands of years. You get to them by taking, apparently, the world's steepest cable car ride 200 feet down from the top of the cliff to the grottoes at the bottom. The ride is not for the faint of heart or those with a fear of heights. Once inside the caves, you are treated to beautiful scenes of turquoise water flowing through a maze of caverns. After wandering through the grottoes, you come back into the bright sun at the edge of the sea. The chalk cliffs are peppered with flint and fossils. We found several beautiful fossils of sand dollars and shells. 

The cliffs of Rosh Hanikra 

Inside the large grotto

The cable car ride to the grottoes

Fossils!

Rosh Hanikra is not just a place of natural beauty. For the history buffs, Rosh Hanikra played an important roll during the British Mandate period in Israel (then Palestine). The British, with help from thousands of workers from British colonies and Israel, built two railroad tunnels through the cliffs. The railroad connected Haifa with Beirut and Tripoli in Lebanon and was one of the primary means to deliver supplies to the British military from 1943-1948. It also served to bring Jewish refugees from concentration camps in Europe to Israel in 1944. 

The tunnel on the Lebanon side is now sealed, but you can walk into it for a distance. We were pretty sure we were at least under the border fence, so I suppose you could say we've been to Lebanon now as well.