Pictures from a visit to Caesarea - So, what's so special about Caesarea you ask? Aside from the impressive ruins, here is a short summary of the city's hectic history:
Caesarea was first built as an ancient Sidoney city, Migdal Sharshoon. Later, around 90 B.C. it was conquered by Alexander Yanai. Later on in history, Caesar Augustus gave it as a present to Hordes which built a big, luxurious and heavily forted city that he named "Caesarea" on behalf of the Caesar. At the Roman period it was the largest city in the land and the sit of the Roman governor. It habitated a mix of Jews, Greeks and Syrian habitants that from time to time quarreled among themselves. At one of this quarrels around 66 B.C. started the big rebellion against the Roman empire. Around 640 A.D. the Arabs conquered the city and continued to flourish up to the conquer of the crusaders, around 1107 A.D. 80 years later, Salah A-Din conquered it back and demolished it to rubble only so the Crusaders would re-built it at the start of the 13th century. Around the mid of that same century the Mamluki Sultan Bibres conquered it from the Crusaders and five years later it was demolished completely by the Sultan El-Sharf so to avoid any future strategic invasion from the sea, and so the city remained demolished up to the day the ruins were uncovered (following the independence war).