Dear ones,
A lot has happened since my last entry. I worked until october in Amsterdam, and then prepared my travel back to Israel, where all this way of the heart basically was initiated in march 2007.
Now I am in Akko, which is a small, mainly muslim city in the north of Israel, near Haifa.
The old city area was built in 1740, and tells a lot of stories about conflicts (the core of the area is a citadel, some time ago home to crusaders, then a prison for israeli resistance fighters during musilman reign in this part of the earth, and finally a mental hospital until 1985), sea-life (including fish that jumps off the table on the local market) and beautiful people (there is an arab marriage going on today, that I will join later again!).
In this city, there was 10 years a woman complaining about a "toilet that doesnt flush". You must know, that all these houses here are build very closely, creating narrow streetpaths, and small stairs leading to little doors of sometimes not so little homes. It is pretty romantic here;)
Anyways, this woman complained at the city council, and they were about to fix the problem. They checked the pipes, and everything seemed okay. So they had to dig a little deeper. And what they found was not only some rubbish blocking the water flow, but also a 500 year old, hidden tunnel that had been created by the templars. It is 200m long or so and was used to connect the harbour with the citadel, as an escape option. Fascinating city!
To finish this report, I would like you to tell a brief summary of the people that have been reigning here.
Besides the Ottman from 1750 till 1914, when the British occupied Israel, the Romans ruled here from 50AC till 600 AC, followed by Egyptian Ptolemais (who renamed the city to Ptolemais) till 900 I think, and then came a Bedouin empire, which was besieged and defeated by the HOly Crusaders, led by Richard Lionheart. Today, the Israeli government withholds political power. Not that I could tell you much more, and this is fascinating!
