Our trip to the beach

On Monday, we headed to the beach for some much-needed R&R. We've stayed in Nazareth pretty much the entire summer, with a couple of day trips here or there. Since we don't have a car, we don't get out often! And as hubby is going off to Scotland in a week, we wanted to have a family vacation before we are parted for the next three months.

Eilat is a city on the southernmost tip of Israel on the Red Sea. It is quite a drive from Nazareth (it took us about 6 1/2 hours to get there, 5 1/2 to get back), but we really wanted to check out the city and see what it was like. We had planned to leave early on Monday morning, but several issues came up that prevented us from leaving before noon. Oh well. Then, we got lost in a little town south of Nazareth. We just couldn't find the turn-off to the highway we needed, so we drove around the (small) city of Afula for a good 40 minutes before finding the correct route (things are not always marked as well as they should be).

When we finally arrived in Eilat, it was pretty late, about 7:30. The kids were restless, but fortunately we found our hotel without much trouble. We got to the gate, only to discover that there is NO ONE at the reception desk to give us the key to our place or even open the gate. There is a telephone number posted at the door, so hubby tries calling it. He gets a message in Hebrew, but no answer, so he assumes the guy isn't answering his phone. At this point, we're all pretty frustrated!

Eventually, we find someone to check us in and he makes all sorts of excuses, but we really don't care. We just want to get to our room, turn on the A/C, and get the kids in bed. Within an hour, the lights are off and all of us are asleep.

The next few days were much better! We went swimming almost every day in the pool, plus an excursion to the beach, the mall, and the aquarium. The kids (especially Culacha) really liked that last bit! Hubby and I both enjoyed the restaurants. The cuisine in Nazareth, while quite delicious, is not very interesting. So going to a steakhouse one night and a tapas bar the next was quite a treat!

Aside from some, uh, hiccups with the hotel, we had a blast. Here are a few pictures of our time there: