March 6, 2019

When I awoke from a solid night’s sleep on Wednesday, the weather had a dramatic change, the rainy night had transformed into a beautiful bright and sunny morning. When I opened the blinds I was struck by the incredible view of the far beach below. My room was located on an upper floor and the hotel was located on a hillside high up from the beach. Deciding to figure out how to make my way down the hillside I quickly showered and left the hotel.
Meandering my way down the mountain’s zig zagging steps I descended not knowing where I’d end up. Finally arriving at the beach, I found only a few people strolling along. It was still early and a chilly 60 degrees. But after a stressful couple of days of airports and connecting flights, the calmness and peacefulness of a quiet beach morning at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea was just what I needed.
Right before descending the final array of steps leading to the Sea I past through what looked like some sort of restaurant. Mostly a takeout place, it also had seating overlooking the crashing waves against its piers.
I was able to communicate what I wanted to have for breakfast by pointing to the picture of the Tamnun “National”. The National was a version of Shakshuka, with vegetables and eggs baked in a spicy red salsa like sauce poured over hummus. The rhythm of the ocean and the sound of the waves had a tranquilizing effect and I stayed long after I ate, sipping on an Israeli coffee.
As I gazed down Tamnun Beach toward what I perceived what may be the public beach area, I realized there wasn’t a way to get there by walking the beach. The area that I was in was isolated. Therefore after breakfast I climbed back up the steps to my hotel on top of the mountain. Working my way along the mountain edge, and by asking directions I was able to locate another set of steps that led to the public beach.

From there I found a good vantage point to catch the sunset on a cloud free evening. Seeing a sunset on the Mediterranean Sea was amazing. I’ve seen many sunsets but somehow this one seemed better. It was now late evening and I had a group meeting at the hotel at 7 PM, but I wanted to see what the town was like at night. When back in town I was able to buy a “I love Netanya” T-shirt and find a little bistro in Natanya Town Center to stop for a glass of wine. It was a great place, in Israel you get more than the usual bar peanuts with a glass of wine, a “bottle” of olives and a veggie salad comes automatically. But I was now running late and had to hustle to get to the 7 PM dinner meeting at the hotel.

I pretty much ran the 10 blocks back to the hotel to get to the dinner at 7 and when I got there the dinner had somehow started at 6:30. The meeting was about to start in the lower ballroom so I had to eat fast.
Having been in education all my life, meetings were not something that I looked forward to. After about 10 minutes I zoned out. I missed out on all the details and crucial information but knew that the tour group was to divided into two groups, a yellow group and a blue group and the tags that we were issued were color coded. I looked at mine and they were yellow.
The next morning, Thursday March 7 we brought our luggage down to the lobby and placed it on the properly colored tour bus. I found the yellow labeled bus and placed my backpack on the bus’ luggage carrier and found a seat at the back of the bus and off we went to begin the aggressive tour itinerary. Our first tour destination was up the Mediterranean coast to the ancient Roman provincial capital of Caesarea by the Sea.