Akko, Israel

My sister-in-law Kim and I took a daytrip from Haifa to Akko (sometimes called Acre). It's a wonderful old city with winding paths and streets that seem to lead you nowhere, but maybe that's the point.

We took the train from Haifa which cost about 19NIS for a 25 minute ride. The Akko train station is about a 20 minute walk from the old town, but with the help of GPS, we made it.

We made two specific stops and other than that we just wandered around. First, we went looking for a hummus place called Said's. We had heard that it was the “best hummus in the Middle East.” We were sorely disappointed by these claims. The waiter was very rude and the hummus wasn't even in the top ten during our trip (and we ate hummus at least once a day for three weeks). Thankfully, after this disappointment, we found a little restaurant in the Turkish Souq called Kukushka. They had very inventive and interesting snack foods, delicious wine by the glass, and local beers. I ordered the veal sausages, fries, and a glass of wine. At about 70NIS, it wasn't cheap but it was well worth it. 

Table and chairs at Kukushka

Our other destination was the tunnels under the city. It cost about 15NIS and included less than we expected. The brochure for Akko shows the tunnels as if they are part of the citadel. They are not; we were fooled. But we were having such a great time wandering around this amazing city, we easily gave up looking for the entrance to the citadel and just enjoyed Akko itself.

Also, there is a cheese shop in the Turisk Souq (which is really just a long hallway with shops inside). Once again, it was great to see a shop trying something different. I tried a few of their cheeses and each was better than the next.