“Why did you go to Caesarea?” Anat (our friend we were staying with in Tel Aviv, in case you forgot) asked us after hearing about our adventure there and back.
“All of the books and travel pages recommended it. It’s ‘Number THREE’ on Trip Advisor.” I told her. She laughed. Ron laughed.
“You should have asked us where to go instead.” She responded.
We should have, but we didn’t, and we regretted it. Caesarea does not belong on any top ten list, let alone top three list of places to go in Israel. Perhaps our experience would have been lightyears better if we:
1. had a car
2. arrived earlier in the day instead of within an hour of closing time at 4pm (Thanks to the bus-train-taxi combination it took to get there)
3. and a budget that could have afforded a fresh (and expensive) seafood dinner at one of the Mediterranean seafront restaurants
But we didn’t have any of the above, and our adventure getting there and back infuriated Andrew, and amused me. We came to the conclusion that Israel is not at all a country for backpackers on a budget. It’s like the country is specifically designed for ‘Birthright’and wealthy Jewish tourists checking out their homeland. No offense, Israel. (Or… maybe that would be a satisfactory assessment of the Israeli tourism industry and pats on backs all around?)
“Had you known Israel was going to be like this, would you still have come?” Andrew asked, referring to how expensive it is and how much Haifa and now Caesarea felt like a disappointment.
“Yes. But I would have stayed in Jerusalem, gone to Palestine longer, and checked out Tel Aviv on the weekends.” I replied. Again, no offense, Israel.
Ok, so let’s back up for a minute- in case you’re unfamiliar with the term ‘Birthright’ (as was I until stepping foot in Israel) I went to Wikipedia for a definition for you: Taglit-Birthright Israel (also Birthright Israel or Birthright) is a not-for-profit educational organization that sponsors free 10-day heritage trips to Israel for Jewish young adults. Its goals are to diminish the division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to Jewish history and culture.
According to some older grad school ‘Birthright’ trippers that we met in Haifa, one of them admitted “It’s SO contrived.” But the entire group also admitted how awesome it was to have an entire trip to Israel (flight, accommodation, tours, etc.) paid for. I would be lying if I didn’t admit to being jealous. This country is super expensive. For example: coffee and a croissant in the morning costs around $8.00. I wouldn’t mind paying so much for that if all of my transportation and accommodation was covered!
So, all of these trips have buses and tour guides and everything laid out on a red carpet for the ‘Birthright kids’ in hopes they will be convinced to move back to the homeland. Meanwhile, Andrew and I look up Ceserea on the internet- find out we can take a train and then either a bus or a taxi to the historical site, and we go from there. What. a. mess.
Our taxi driver overcharges us. By the time we arrived, we had forty minutes to sprint through the ruins that were initially built by Herod the Great as the port city of Caesarea Maritima around 25 BCE. Being right on the coast, the view of the Mediterranean was unbeatable- but the ‘park’ itself was full of construction materials that were left out giving the park an unkempt, and shabby appearance.
“Basically, anything you have to pay for in Israel isn’t worth it.” Andrew declared. I think he’s on to something. Both Masada and now Caesarea let us down. Both had overpriced entry fees, and not a whole lotta bang for our buck- er- shekel. The Old City in Jerusalem, The Dead Sea, The Baha’i Gardens, even The Holocaust Museum, were all free and worth our while -most sites I would even go as far as saying they were incredible!
After we got kicked out of the ruins- lit’rally- kicked out when it closed at 4pm (in the winter months only) we discovered there were absolutely no taxis waiting to take tourists back to the train station or to the nearest bus station. We doubled back to the promenade full of restaurants offering free wifi and both looked up how to get back to Tel Aviv from Caesarea on our phones. All of our findings agreed: “By car.” Except one that offered up a bus stop right off the highway 2 km away. We walked. We waited for an hour for the bus to arrive. We made it back to Tel Aviv, bought some convenient store hummus (which was surprisingly delicious) and beers (which were surprisingly cheap), and called it a night.
