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Anyhow, after that we walked, that is CLIMBED, back up to the Pilgrim House. Mt. Carmel is the western end of the Carmel range and it is a mountain, albeit not very high. It makes up for it in verticality. In the afternoon, we walked back down about 200 steps to Allenby Street so we could walk back up the terraces that lead from Allenby Street at the bottom of the mountain, to the Shrine of the Bab, and will eventually lead to the top of the mountain. The stairs are marble with tiny little channels of water running beside them. Four of them lead up to the Shrine level. At each terrace there are fountains on each side of the steps and trees and benches behind the trees so you can go aside and pray or just sit and enjoy the view of the harbor and the gardens. All around the steps is landscaped. The slope is so steep it takes four men with ropes on each lawnmower to cut the grass. There are flowers everywhere and the tall dark cypress which are so lovely and which defeated the light meter on my camera. I am not an experienced photographer and didn't know that what the light meter saw and what I saw might not be the same thing. So the grass on a lot of the pictures is washed out, but the angle of the hills shows and the composition is good. The engineering of the terraces is astonishing. Mr Sabha, who is overseeing the project, also designed the House of Worship in India. That building is poured concrete in the shape of an opening lotus and has won numerous awards. Mr. Sabha talked to us on the last day and is quite fierce. But he has accomplished quite a feat here, working on slopes of 45 to 60 degrees, on schedule, under budget and without fatality. The city of Haifa has undertaken on its own to straighten Ben Gurion Street and move the container harbor so that there will be a direct line from the harbor to the top of the mountain. |
