Naharia, Israel

Naharia founded by German Jews in the mid-1930s, Nahariya is a quiet summer resort, popular with older tourists and retired, European-born Israelis. It used to be popular with Israeli honeymooners, but most have moved on to the greener honeymoon pastures of Eilat, or to package resorts in Turkey and Cyprus. Maybe there's a connection between Nahariya's honeymoon attractions and the fact that archaeologists dug up a Canaanite fertility goddess on its beach.The town has a pretty main street, Ha-Ga'aton Boulevard, with a stream in winter shaded by breezy eucalyptus trees planted along its broad median. With its ucalyptus-shaded shops running down to a sparkling sea, Nahariya could become another Carmel, California, but for now there is a low-key, small-town feeling to the place. There are a few rather ordinary shops, cafes and restaurants in the downtown area. Lifeguards go home and lock the fences around the public beaches at 5pm, so if you want to hit the beach without the threat of skin cancer, this is not the ideal place. The sparkling sea is often a soup of garbage washed down the coast from chaotic Lebanon; to make matters worse, the city has no sewage treatment plan. But Nahariya has many fans, and it's a good base for exploring the northern coast and Western Galilee Israel.