Haifa
— — the gardens that walk down to the sea.
Not only on a wall.
“A port city held between Mount Carmel and the Mediterranean, the third-largest in Israel. The Baháʼí Gardens fall from the shrine on the upper slope down nineteen terraces to the German Colony at the base, a straight green line cut through the city. Container cranes work the harbour, the Carmelit climbs the hill, and three faiths share the same quiet hours.
Haifa, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Haifa sits on the northern Mediterranean coast of Israel, on the slopes of Mount Carmel where the mountain meets the sea. The city has a population of about 285,000, making it the third-largest in the country after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The natural harbour, deepened in the 1930s under the British Mandate, is the largest in Israel and a continuous working port. Mount Carmel rises to 546 metres at its highest point, with the modern city built up its western slope in long terraced steps.
The Baháʼí Gardens, also called the Hanging Gardens of Haifa, descend the western slope of Mount Carmel in nineteen terraces, one for each of the eighteen Letters of the Living and their teacher, the Báb. The Shrine of the Báb at the centre of the eleventh terrace, with its gilded dome, holds the remains of the religion's herald, executed in Tabriz in 1850. The whole site, completed in 2001 and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2008, drops about a kilometre from the upper gate to the lower.
The gardens are open to visitors most days from 9:00 to 17:00, with free guided tours descending the central staircase from the upper terrace. The German Colony at the foot of the gardens runs along Ben Gurion Avenue, a straight axis of restored 19th-century Templer houses now full of restaurants and cafés. The Carmelit, an underground funicular railway with six stations climbing about 270 metres, is the smallest metro system in the world and the easiest way up the mountain from downtown.