The German Colony: Templers, Red Roofs and the Grand View

Walk up Ben-Gurion Boulevard from the sea and Haifa suddenly looks like a Swabian village that wandered into the Middle East. Low houses of honey-colored stone, steep red-tiled roofs, carved wooden shutters, and German inscriptions above the doorways. Then you lift your eyes and the whole illusion breaks: straight ahead, the nineteen terraces of the Bahai Gardens climb Mount Carmel to the golden dome of the Shrine of the Bab. It is the single best photograph in the city, and it is free.

The colony was founded in 1868 by the German Templers, a Protestant movement from southern Germany who believed that settling the Holy Land would hasten the return of Christ. They were practical people as much as pious ones. They laid out a straight boulevard, built solid stone houses with dated lintels and biblical verses in German gothic script, and brought modern farming, the first regular carriage service to Nazareth, and small industry to a sleepy Ottoman port. Haifa's growth into a real city owes them a great deal. Their story ended badly - the community grew close to Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and the British deported most of the remaining Templers during the Second World War - and for decades the houses sat neglected.

The restoration, completed in the early 2000s, is one of Israel's genuine urban success stories. The original facades were preserved down to the stonework and inscriptions, the boulevard was turned into a broad pedestrian-friendly promenade with a central garden strip, and the ground floors filled with restaurants, bars and cafes. On a summer evening the whole street eats outside. In December it becomes the heart of Haifa's Holiday of Holidays festival, strung with lights, with a Christmas tree at the bottom and Hanukkah candles in the windows.

Things worth slowing down for: the German inscriptions above the doors (look for the dates, some going back to 1869), the small Templer cemetery, the City Museum housed in the old Templer community building, and the top of the boulevard where the road meets the gate of the lower gardens. Nearby, the Museum of Japanese Art and the Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum are both a short drive up or down the hill.

Give yourself two hours here, ideally late afternoon when the light turns the stone gold and the gardens glow. On our Haifa Highlights and Cultural Mosaic tours we walk the boulevard, explain the Templer story building by building, and then drive up to the Louis Promenade so you see the same gardens from above. Contact us to build your Haifa day.