The Mediterranean shore of Israel: Acre, Caesarea, Apollonia, Ashkelon, Ashdod-Yam and Jaffa, where Crusader fortresses, ancient ports and later old towns are layered on the same sites.
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Jaffa is among the oldest ports of the eastern Mediterranean and today forms the southern quarter of Tel Aviv-Yafo. This walk follows its limestone alleys, its fishing harbour, its churches and mosques, and the flea market that fills the streets inland.
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Acre is one of the rare places where a medieval city survives almost intact beneath a later one. Below the Ottoman streets and mosques of the walled town lie the vaulted halls of the Crusader capital, rediscovered and excavated over the last century.
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Al-Bahr, the Sea Mosque, stands on the slope above Jaffa's old harbour. Modest in scale and worn by salt air, it was for generations the mosque of those who worked the port, and its minaret remains a landmark for boats returning to shore.
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On a sandstone cliff north of Tel Aviv, the ruins of Apollonia-Arsuf overlook the Mediterranean. The site was a coastal town in antiquity and later a Crusader stronghold, whose moat and towers were carved directly out of the rock.
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On the beach at Ashdod stand the remains of a fortress long known as Qal'at al-Mina. Its sandstone walls, round towers and gateways belong to the chain of strongholds that once watched over this stretch of the Mediterranean coast.
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The archaeological park of Ashkelon gathers thousands of years of occupation on a single stretch of coast: a Canaanite rampart and its arched gateway, a Philistine and later Roman city, and medieval walls collapsing towards the beach.
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Perched on the lip of the escarpment high above the Jordan valley, Belvoir is one of the best-preserved Crusader castles in the region. Built by the Hospitaller order on a concentric plan, it resisted a long siege before falling.
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On the road from the coast to Jerusalem, the church of Abu Ghosh is among the best-preserved Crusader buildings in the country. A spring still runs in its crypt, faded medieval frescoes cover its walls, and a Benedictine community maintains it.
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Caesarea was raised by Herod on a shore with no natural anchorage, and given an artificial harbour of unprecedented scale. Its theatre, hippodrome, aqueduct and later Crusader fortifications line one of the most spectacular coastal sites in the region.
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Beside the ancient city, a museum brings together objects recovered from Caesarea and its submerged harbour: statuary, architectural fragments, coins and everyday items that put faces and names to the ruins along the shore.
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Close to the old harbour of Acre, the Franciscan church of Saint John and the adjoining Terra Sancta buildings serve the Latin community of the walled city. Their green dome is one of the markers of the seafront skyline.
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Rising above the roofs of old Acre, the mosque built by Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar is the largest in the country outside Jerusalem. Its arcaded courtyard, fountains and reused antique columns anchor a walled city inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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Jaffa's harbour has received ships for thousands of years. Above it, restored alleys, a flea market, churches, mosques and artists' studios make up a dense old town at the southern edge of Tel Aviv.
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Khan al-Hilu belongs to the network of caravanserais that once punctuated the roads of the Levant. Its courtyard, arcades and upper rooms reveal how merchants, animals and goods were sheltered for a night on the trade routes.
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Rising from the flat farmland of the Sharon plain, the mound of Qaqun carries the remains of a fortress that commanded the routes between the coast and the interior. Crusader and later Islamic-period building phases are still legible in its weathered masonry.
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Set in a walled garden in Jaffa, this Russian Orthodox church is recognisable far across the city by its tall bell tower. The compound shelters the tomb venerated as that of Tabitha and remains a destination for Orthodox pilgrims from Russia and Eastern Europe.
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Modest in scale and rich in atmosphere, this chapel is dedicated to the Sacred Heart, one of the most widespread devotions in the Catholic world. Stone, stained glass and candlelight compose an interior made for prayer rather than for crowds.
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St Anthony's is the Roman Catholic parish church of Jaffa, its Gothic Revival lines rising among the streets of the old port city. Beyond its architecture, it is the meeting point of a Christian community that has lived here for generations.
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Dominating the harbour of Jaffa from the height of the old town, St Peter's is a Franciscan church raised over the remains of a Crusader citadel. Its ochre façade and bell tower are among the defining silhouettes of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa waterfront.
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Perched on the sandstone cliff north of Tel Aviv, the Sidna Ali mosque looks straight out over the Mediterranean. A place of prayer and of local pilgrimage, it stands beside the coastal remains of a landscape shaped by centuries of settlement.
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Inside the walled city of Acre, St Andrew's belongs to the dense fabric of one of the great historic ports of the eastern Mediterranean. Its interior, its bells and its congregation testify to a Christian presence maintained across centuries of upheaval.
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On the headland of Mount Carmel overlooking Haifa bay, the Stella Maris monastery is the principal house of the Carmelite order. Beneath its painted dome lies a cave linked by tradition to the prophet Elijah, at the origin of the order itself.
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Set at the sources of the Yarkon river, Tel Afek carries thousands of years of occupation. A Roman city stood here, and above it a later fortress still raises its square walls and corner towers over water, reeds and open parkland.
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Tel Aviv holds one of the largest concentrations of International Style architecture in the world. Balconies, ribbon windows, curved corners and raised pilotis form a coherent modernist city, recognised as a World Heritage site.
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On the Haifa shoreline at the foot of Mount Carmel, Tel Shiqmona is an ancient mound washed by the Mediterranean. Excavation has revealed buildings, installations and floors from successive periods on a site inseparable from the sea beside it.
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Descending the slope of Mount Carmel in nineteen terraces, the Bahá'í Gardens frame the golden-domed Shrine of the Báb above the bay of Haifa. A World Heritage site and one of the most rigorously composed designed landscapes in the world.
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Standing where the old city meets the modern street, the Jaffa clock tower is one of a series raised across the Ottoman Empire. Its stone and clock faces mark the moment a Mediterranean port entered the age of public, shared time.
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Under the streets of Acre lies the fortress of the Knights Hospitaller: a complex of vaulted halls, courtyards and passages buried when the Ottoman city was built above it, and now excavated. It is a highlight of the World Heritage old city.
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Beside the Sea of Galilee, the fortress of Tiberias raises walls of dark basalt above the waterfront. Founded in the Crusader period and rebuilt under Ottoman rule, it stands as a compact record of the town's contested history.
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In the old city of Acre, one of the Mediterranean's great walled ports, the Zawiyat al-Shadhiliyya serves as mosque and lodge for a community of the Shadhili Sufi tradition. Its courtyard opens onto a quarter of vaulted lanes and sea ramparts.
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