Exploring Haifa: A Journey Through Israel’s Coastal Gem

Haifa is moody in the best possible way. Israel’s third-largest city is a jigsaw of neighborhoods between the slopes of Mt Carmel and the Mediterranean Sea. Interlacing communities—Arab and Jewish, Baha’i and Druze, Ethiopian and Russian—all bestow energy on this dynamic city, where traffic buzzes between millennia-old shrines, peaceful promenades, and lively food markets.

It’s impossible to drink in Haifa all at once. Instead, follow your mood and explore the city one distinctive neighborhood at a time.

Serene Haifa: Daydream Over Hadar HaCarmel’s Views

For a slow-paced introduction to Haifa, start at the top of the town in Hadar HaCarmel. This genteel residential area offers peerless views from the flanks of Mt Carmel, particularly along Louis Promenade. Peering over the walkway’s marbled colonnade, you’ll see big, blue Haifa Bay and the ancient city of Akko shimmering hazily in the distance. The bay has been pivotal for Haifa from its beginnings as a fishing port through the medieval and Ottoman periods, when the city grew wealthy from maritime trade. Still bustling with cargo ships, Haifa is now Israel’s largest port.

Amble from the promenade to Yefe Nof St to reach the pinnacle of the Baha’i Gardens, Haifa’s splendid centerpiece. A major pilgrimage site for Baha’i believers, the gardens cloak 19 separate terraces, cascading around the domed Shrine of the Báb. This is the final resting place of the predecessor to the Baha’i faith’s main prophet, Baha’u’llah. The Báb was confined to darkness before his execution in Persia in 1850, so he is revered with gardens that are bright and colorful, illuminated after sundown. Follow a walking tour into this garden sanctuary: tinkling water features, cactus beds, and palm trees create a calming space amid a bustling city.

Stylish Haifa: Stroll Around the Chic German Colony

Guided walks of the Baha’i Gardens finish down near the southern edge of HaMoshava HaGermanit (the German Colony). This attractive neighborhood of honey-colored stone is the place to see and be seen, to stroll between cafes, and people-watch over an ice-cold beer. The colony’s elegant main street, Ben Gurion, traces a straight line directly from the Baha’i Gardens to the sea, lined with restaurants and cafes that spill onto the pavement.

Haifa was a tiny village when the German Temple Society arrived in 1869 to purchase land, set up farms, and found a carriage service to ferry passengers between Haifa and Akko. Now an upscale neighborhood, the German Colony bears numerous traces of its roots—look closely at the lintels of Templer homes to see inscriptions in ornate Germanic calligraphy. Inhabiting one century-old building is the romantic Colony Hotel; further north another Templer-era building houses the City Museum, worth a wander for its local history displays and rotating contemporary art.

Time spent in a cafe is almost inevitable in the German Colony (try Douzan for great coffee or tamarind cordials). However, if you find yourself at the port end of Ben Gurion still peckish, turn right to find Ein El Wadi, a family restaurant beloved for its makloubeh (aromatic rice, chicken, and cauliflower).

Hungry Haifa: Graze Your Way Through Wadi Nisnas

Leaving the German Colony, a 10-minute walk southeast along Sderot HaMeginim and Ein Dor St transports you from idle elegance to a hive of market catcalls and grab-and-go food. Welcome to Wadi Nisnas, a largely Arab neighborhood with a reputation for Haifa’s best market produce and outstanding falafel. Wadi Nisnas boomed as an Arab workers’ quarter until the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Around 3000 of the original Arab population stayed in Wadi Nisnas, and the neighborhood’s weathered limestone houses and busy shop fronts have remained largely unchanged.

Flowing through Wadi Nisnas is an open-air market that brims with local produce, from crates of watermelons and limes to soil-crusted bouquets of fresh herbs. As you stroll along Wadi St, various scents mingle in the air: roasting coffee, sweet halva, and the saline tang of fish. And then there’s the falafel. HaZkenim is a major contender for the neighborhood’s best (with just the right amount of crunch) but that would be heresy to devotees of the hole-in-the-wall Felafel Michelle, which faces it in a stand-off on the other side of Wadi St. Just north of these falafel rivals is Abd Al Hadi sweet shop, featuring a head-spinning range of baklava (make sure to grab some to take away if you’re already waddling from overindulgence).

High-Spirited Haifa: Hi-Tech Displays and Heated Debate Around Masada St

The zone around Masada St, sandwiched between Wadi Nisnas and Hadar HaCarmel, provides an enjoyable sensory jolt. By day, the MadaTech Museum, set within the rosy brick walls of the 1912 Technion Building, offers exhibition spaces that fizz with activity, from creaking hydroelectricity wheels to glowing 3D cinema screens and the clatter of tiny fingers slotting geometric puzzles into place. At sundown, the bigger kids come out to play along Masada St, where music is almost as loud as the rattle of cocktail shakers.

Masada St has evolved from an underloved neighborhood into boho ground zero. This kaleidoscopic street features murals created by Haifa-based street-art collective Broken Fingaz, a scattering of tattoo parlours, and various bars that attract a mixed crowd of artists, tourists, and free-thinkers. Political debates are common in Masada St, and exchanges of ideas tend to be good-humored and candid. Consider ducking into late-opening Cafe Masada, which draws a debate-hungry crowd, or better yet Elika, a casual art cafe with an eclectic, well-chosen jazz-rock soundtrack. To feel the pulse of multicultural Haifa, there’s no more fitting place than Masada St after sundown.

Spiritual Haifa: Ponder the Universe in Bat Galim

At the opposite end of the emotional spectrum is Bat Galim, Haifa’s northern tip. Hop aboard the cable car from its seafront promenade up to Stella Maris Carmelite Monastery. During the Crusader era, Christians took up residence in caves here and eventually established the Carmelite Order. An inspiring venue for contemplation is the monastery’s marbled Baroque-style church, dating to 1836. Lift your gaze to its heavenly dome, embellished with paintings of Elijah ascending to paradise in a fiery chariot.

A steep walk from here leads to another meditative space, Elijah’s Cave, where the prophet is said to have slept and prayed before confronting the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel (1 Kings 18). Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Druze all come to seek inspiration in this 14m-long grotto, and rumors have long swirled about the cave’s enlightening, even healing, powers. The atmosphere within this simple shrine is intense, with devotees filing into the cave to whisper prayers into recesses in the stone.

Back on the seafront, meander to Bat Galim Beach. Walking along this small stretch of sand around sunset, watching the sky glow and darken, is itself a near-spiritual experience. Here by the shore of a city that’s both sedate and boisterous, electrifying and calming, is the chance for a moment of quiet…until tomorrow, when you’ll step straight back out into Haifa’s happy maelstrom.