This cache-path was hidden in celebration of our daughter, Goni, 10th birthday. She thought she's FTF... The 4 caches take you from Stella Maris, on top of the Carmel, down through a historical and beautiful path, all the way to Bat-Galim. From there you can take the cable-car back to Stella Maris, or enjoy other paths in Haifa.
Stella Maris is located at the head of the Carmel mountain. The panorama from Stella Maris spans from the Galillee, Haifa bay, Lebanon, Haifa downtown, Bat Galim and French Carmel. The Carmelite Monastery is located in Stella Maris.
In the 12th century Crusaders began to inhabit the caves in the area. The patriarch of Jerusalem, Saint Albert, provided an act of the Order, who took the name 'Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel' or Carmelites. The oratory was dedicated to the Virgin Mary in her aspect of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, (Latin: Stella Maris). Within a few decades, these monastic hermits left the troubled Holy Land and the Carmelite order spread throughout Europe. In 1631 the Carmelites returned to Stella Maris, and founded the current building in 1826.
In the monastery front you can find a memorial to Napoleons soldiers. Sick and wounded French soldiers were accommodated in the monastery, and when Napoleon withdrew, the Turks slaughtered them and drove out the friars.
The Stella Maris Lighthouse is built in the summer palace of Abdullah Pasha, the ruler of Acre from 1820 to 1831. In 1928, with a donation by the Spanish Honorary Consul, the current lighthouse was built. In the Second World War the British Army rented the house from the Carmelites to serve in the preparation to the Nazi invasion to the area. The Jewish community learned that the site is also used by the British in locating boats of Holocaust refugees, and attempted to neutralize the radar. The British remained there until their evacuation at the end of the British Mandate in 1948. The building has been used by the Israeli Navy ever since.