The Old City of Acre really has 2 aspects to it – the external experience of the narrow mediaeval streets/souks, walls and harbour and the interior experience of the “pay to visit” sites – in particular the Crusader City. The external aspects are pleasant enough with some nice views of and from the ancient walls of the town and harbours and, in the souks, what an earlier reviewer has called a “Jerusalem Feel”. Some parts have been restored but others are very run down- particularly some of the Khans. Yet, it was amazing how many run down buildings had a big notice stating that “This property is not for sale”! I guess there are investment plans which have yet to come fully to fruition.

I will concentrate this review on the “pay to view” visit. We had an Israeli National Parks pass but none of the “attractions” in Acre are under its control. It appears that Acre’s development and tourist sites are run by a government capitalized organization called “The Old Acre Development Company”. Its Web site is here - It is interesting to read its Tourism Development strategy - this extract gives a good feel for what it is about - “To create experiential centers in the Old City's port and waterfront as bustling public expanses interconnected by pedestrian routes and a chain of events to be held throughout the year as a long-term infrastructure to achieve a constant flow of tourists and visitors.”

An understanding of this background will help understand the nature of the offering made to tourists. This consists of tickets for multiple attractions in the form of “The Crusader Citadel plus….”. So, you cannot buy a ticket for the castle without also buying a ticket for a Modern Art Gallery (“The Okashi Art Museum ….hosts temporary exhibits of Israeli art alongside a permanent exhibition of the works of Avshalom Okashi”) and an ethnological museum (“The Treasures in the Wall Museum is the product of 2 collectors Dan Hortman and Michael Luria. The Items on display shed light on the fabric of life in the Galilee over the past 150 years”). Beyond these the Turkish Hamam has been developed into an “experiential” audio visual tour and requires a separate add on ticket even if you don’t want the previous 2 museums! We didn’t work our way any further down the list of combination tickets and add-ons – at least they offered old fogie price reductions to all old fogies and not just Israeli old fogies as the National Parks did – but only from 46 NIS pp to 39!.

Once you have worked out what the best combination might be for your interests (or at least the least bad!) you pay your money and go on to the Audio Guide dispensing office. The little gismo you get in return for leaving your passport as collateral (not of the latest design – other sites had ones which were automatically triggered) is supposed to tell you what you are viewing when you key the number of the “station” you are at. You also have a “map” (designed by someone with no feel for cartography!!) to enable you to position yourself at the next station. Unfortunately the map was often wrong, the station numbers were often illegible or hidden or in a different place or not in sequence, some of them seemed to be operating 2 different numbering systems and others were completely missing (this may owe something to the fact that the area seemed to be undergoing rebuilding to put in place a new exhibition area). The net result - total frustration!

You also receive 2 different sets of instructions as to the route for your visit – 1 given at the gismo office consists of seeing the Citadel, returning to the start and handing in your gismo and then setting off across the town to find your other ticketed “attractions”! The other, given at the ticket check consists of leaving the Citadel through another exit at the far side after your visit straight into the souk, finishing your other “attractions” and then returning through the town to hand in your gismo from the outside to get your passports back! We did the latter and found our way ok with a bit of asking but they really should do a better job at signing – we met another group of non Hebrew/Arabic/English speakers who were hopelessly lost in the twisting souks!

I can’t say I was particularly impressed with the Crusader Citadel and don’t believe that the frustrations with the audio system played much part in this. There are a lot of vary large arcaded underground “Halls” used by the Hospitaliers (photo) but, to us at least, these all merged together and the impact of some of them had been destroyed by the introduction of large (as yet) empty display cases for some future exhibition. There were a few courtyards as well but the views of these were disfigured by the scaffolding of external reconstruction.

We moved on to the “Turkish Bath House – The Story of the last bath attendant”. Now I usually avoid such “experiential” events like the plague and despise myself when I get caught up in one – but this caught us unawares. I discovered later that it promised a “dramatic exciting and informative sound and light show” (as well as “mock steam”!!). Actually it was better than I feared when I realized what I had got us into!

The Okashi museum took 30 seconds – not our scene at all. The “Treasures in the Wall Museum” was an annoyingly long way away from everywhere else along the city wall which again was not well indicated and might be of interest if one had lots of time to fill but you could see why they got people into it via the “inclusive ticket” ploy. Which left the final “attraction” included in our ticket – the 350 m long Templar Tunnel from the fort to the port. Now I have never been in so many tunnels as on this trip – from Megiddo to Beersheba to Jerusalem to Akko ….. This one was ok with a couple of interesting slide shows playing on the walls but I could have done without it.

After I had written the above I searched the Web to check on the ticket prices I reported above and, totally coincidentally, came across this critique of the Acre offering by an Israeli publication. Titled "Acre is hungry for another Crusade - this time against Urban decay" it chimes with a lot of what I have commented on (though it thinks more of the Citadel than I did) and at least shows me that I wasn’t ranting irrationally!