The monastery’s rooftop balcony provides an incredible vantage point of all compass points
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If you grew up in Israel then your school must have taken you on a field-trip to the Muhraka when you were a kid, and the monastery, and the vista visible from the peak of Mount Carmel, almost certainly etched itself on your memory. However, tracing your steps back to the Muhraka, even in the age of Google Maps and Waze is not easy.
You need to drive towards the Druze village of Daliat al Carmel and turn right just before you enter it (or left, after you leave it, if you are coming from Haifa in the West) and then drive up a long, winding mountainside road. When you begin ascending that winding road leading to the peak of Mount Carmel, the majestic, green shrouded mountain that overlooks the port city of Haifa, you can feel that you are entering a different world.
It comes as no surprise that this was the site the Prophet Elijah chose to challenge the priests of the Baal, a struggle commemorated by the statue of Elijah (brandishing a sword over a vanquished Baal worshipper) at the entrance to the Monastery. The monastery’s rooftop balcony provides an incredible vantage point of all compass points. On a good day you can see the Galilee and the Jerezel Valley in the east, the Coastal Plain and the Sharon in the southwest and even the Golan and the Hermon far to the northeast- clear to the other side of Israel!