Chapter 9 Tues. May 10th cont. Akko (Acre)

We traveled across Haifa Bay to Akko which was built by the Crusaders who raped and pillaged the area and murdered many of the inhabitants. It's a huge stone fortress that was later used by the British as a police station and later used by Otto Preminger as a set in the movie "Exodus" depicting the actual jailbreak of Irgun members during the 1948 war from this jail. Our tour began at the Sally Port thru the dining area, meeting room, crypt and escape tunnel.

 The courtyard outside had wide steps so that animals could be lead up the stairs.

Prior to touring the fort, we had lunch at a sit down falafel stand that was organized chaos and one of the few tourist traps we encountered. Falafel was $10 Yikes! Pomegranate/OJ mixture was $7/glass (wine in the hotel didn't cost that much)  and a small piece of halavah was $7 Double yikes! 3- 4 tour buses arrived at the same time and it was a madhouse and all I could hear were angry Germans, angry French and annoyed Americans demanding service and waiters yelling orders into kitchen. Even Ronit and the bus driver got into the act taking orders and waiting on tables to make sure we were taken care of - Kudos to both of them or we'd still be there waiting to be served. Ronit commented it might be the last time she uses that restaurant which wasn't really bad quality wise, just really crowded.

So now it's time for the bus to pick us up and he could only go so far as a plaza close to the fort. There are cars all over trying to make their way back out of the plaza and our bus driver is trying to make U-turn in area that looks absolutely impossible. Artie runs behind bus to help driver navigate and I thought Ronit would have a cow yelling at him to watch out he doesn't get hit. It all worked out OK but I still can't believe he was able to make the U-turn in the space he had - you had to see the size of the bus and how little room there was. Then it was another 20 minutes going up the narrow road leading away from the plaza trying to maneuver around cars heading the other way. Applause rang out as we finally got on our way to Kibbutz Lavi where we would spend the next 2 days.