Caesarea is a city of the past and the future, the new opposite the ancient. While new Caesarea is graced with magnificent modern homes, ancient Caesarea offers tourists the ruins of unique, impressive buildings. While golfers enjoy lush fairways, horse races are reenacted in the huge hippodrome in the national park.
The ancient biblical mound of Megiddo in Megiddo National Park, whose universal value has made it a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is on an important ancient and modern crossroad. By the third millennium BCE, Megiddo was a powerfully fortified city; 1,000 years later it became a center of Egyptian rule, and is mentioned frequently in the Bible. Christianity identifies it as the eschatological Armageddon. Highlights include ‘Solomon’s Gate’; panoramas of the pastoral Jezreel Valley and the ninth-century BCE underground water system––testimony to the amazing abilities and initiative of its engineers.
