RIDING ISRAEL: Knafeh at Dalyat Al-Karmel

It's Friday, April 4th, 2026. The time is 13:30. Since the beginning of the war with Iran, I have used my RT only for shopping, doctors and getting packages, besides taking my wife here and there. So I am in deep need of a motorcycle trip.

I decided to take the bike and do a short trip to the Carmel Mountains. Main destination: Daliyat al-Karmel.

From Wikipedia:

So I left home at 13:30 heading north on Road #2, Israel's freeway that connects Tel Aviv to Haifa. Living in Netanya, this road is my main gateway to the rest of the country, whether heading north or south. It is the coastal road from Tel Aviv to Haifa. The fact is that there aren't many other options — the only alternative is Road #4, which runs parallel to it and is the old highway from Tel Aviv to Haifa. Both are quite straight, and in this segment the only difference between them is that Road #4 has traffic lights, while #2 is a full freeway. South of Tel Aviv and north of Haifa, Road #4 is the one that hugs the coast — northward from Haifa all the way to Rosh HaNikra (the Lebanese border), and southward from Tel Aviv to Yad Mordechai (the kibbutz at the border with Gaza).

This is the itinerary that I did:

As I mentioned in the introduction to this article, I left home at 13:30.

Around 14:30 I was already arriving at Daliyat al-Karmel. The main issue with arriving there is always the traffic jam on the main roads of the town, and finding a parking spot close enough to the town center. Yes, even for motorcycles, these are two challenging tasks.

I managed to find a good parking spot and went down to visit the central market of the town.

This is Daliyat al-Karmel's central street market.

Once it was a very typical Druze market, with folkloric items that tourists used to explore and buy. Today the market has become an ordinary market, carrying items of all kinds. You can still find some Druze items among Bob Marley shirts and other things. The glass items shop is still there and their products are beautiful. But in general, the market has lost some of its folkloric magic.

Daliyat al-Karmel has been chosen in recent years as the shawarma capital of Israel, taking the title that was held for many years by another town, Abu Ghosh, near Jerusalem. Places like שווארמה ובס (I'm not sure whether to translate it as Shawarma Webs or Shawarma Wabas), Shawarma El-Amal, Shawarma 11 and BBQ Mirage (this last one already in the neighboring Isfiya — also spelled Usfiya) have become names known throughout the country.

If you don't know what shawarma is, well — it is the same as a Greek gyros or a Turkish döner kebab:

This roll of thin pieces of meat keeps rolling around and being heated by the burners in the back. This constant movement provides a slow roasting that makes the meat delicious. It is served with salads and other side dishes, usually in a pita bread or a laffa (the Druze or Iraqi bread), or on a plate for people who prefer not to eat with their hands. In Israel it can be made with three different kinds of meat: chicken, beef or lamb.

Despite the fact that shawarma is delicious and I was at the shawarma capital of the country, I had just finished lunch and did not intend to have another one. But there is always room for dessert, so after walking the main street for a few minutes, I entered a place that I always visit when I come to Daliyat al-Karmel: Iman's Kitchen, also known as Knafeh Abu Hassan. Their knafeh is just a piece of heaven.

For those who have never heard of it, knafeh is a traditional Middle Eastern dessert made of spun pastry (kadayif) or semolina dough, layered with cheese — often Akawi or Nabulsi — and soaked in a sweet, rose or orange blossom-scented sugar syrup.

This is how it looked at my dish:

The lower layer in the right picture is the cheese, and the upper part is the kadayif pastry. Excellent!

From this point, I was ready to go back to the motorcycle and continue my trip.

I continued on the same road heading north (Daliyat al-Karmel – Isfiya – Haifa), passed through Isfiya, and a little before reaching Haifa I turned left onto Road #721, also known as the Beit Oren road.

The Beit Oren road is well known among riders, as it is a winding road with very beautiful scenery. The road descends from the Carmel Mountains to the coast, going from east to west, and has already appeared in some of my videos. The difference this time is that I was going to ride it in the opposite direction — down from the Carmel in the east to the coast in the west — and the view is different in this direction.

Historical note: In December 2010 there was a large fire in the Carmel Mountains, burning more than 50,000 dunams of forest. It took 4 days for the firefighters to bring the fire under control, during which time the populations of Beit Oren, a hotel in the area, and the Damon Prison, which stands on top of the mountain, were evacuated. Some of the prison staff who stayed behind to oversee the evacuation left on the last bus, and this bus was surrounded by the fire during its descent. A major rescue operation was launched to try to save these people, but it was unsuccessful. 44 people died, including 36 Israel Prison Service members — most of them new recruits — as well as three senior police officers, among them the chief of Haifa's police, and three firefighters, including a 16-year-old volunteer. The fire is remembered as the worst fire disaster in the history of the country.

A monument commemorating the 44 people who died in the disaster was built at one of the most beautiful points along the road, just above where the bus got stranded. I stopped to visit the monument; here are some pictures.

After that stop, I rode down the Beit Oren Road, which looks beautiful at this time of year, when there are still some rains but the temperature is already spring-like. The greenery was very lush, with no more signs of the burned trees that we could still see in small numbers until about 5–6 years ago. Nature in the area has completely restored itself.

From there I turned left onto Road #4 for 200 meters, and then right in the direction of Atlit, where I took the left turn to get back onto Road #2 and travel back home.

At 16:30 I was back home, meaning that the whole tour took around 3 hours. It was definitely a lovely ride to clear my mind from the current situation in the Middle East.

The whole trip was recorded on video, and from that I created a 30-minute video that gives a good sense of travelling through the area and enjoying what it has to offer. Here is the video — make sure you watch it in full screen: