Friday morning we went down to Bat Galim, the main beach and promenade at the northern end of the city. The season doesn't officially begin until next week, after Yom Ha'Atzmaut (Israel Independence Day), so it wasn't very crowded.
The water was gorgeous -- deep blue with crashing waves. The promenade -- not so much. There were a couple of restaurants and very few stores. We had expected something more. We've learned that Haifa isn't a tourist town, but there wasn't even a t-shirt shop. Maybe other things open up once the season starts, but it was pretty empty. Still, we enjoyed walking down the beach and climbing out on the rocks. It was also fun to watch the men fishing, using huge expanding poles with no reels.
We also noticed a curious division of populations on the beach. The Russians were swimming, the Israelis were surfing (or at least trying to), and the Arabs were fishing. There were no apparent exceptions to this. We seemed to be the only tourists.
There are a couple of other beaches to the south that are supposed to be nicer. We'll check those out next week.
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