Haifa

Haifa works — the old saying assigns praying to Jerusalem and playing to Tel Aviv, and leaves this port city the labour, which it accepts with pride. The city climbs Mount Carmel in three terraces of its own: harbour below, commerce in the middle, gardens above, stitched together by the Carmelit, Israel's only underground funicular. Its crown is unique on earth: the Baháʼí World Centre's golden-domed shrine and nineteen terraced gardens cascading down the mountain — the UNESCO-listed holy place of the Baháʼí faith, whose geometry of hedges and light defines the city's face. Around it, Haifa's reputation as Israel's most workaday and most mixed city — Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods sharing the slopes — expresses itself in festivals of coexistence and in the German Colony's restaurant boulevard beneath the gardens.

The Technion, Israel's oldest university and Nobel incubator, keeps the city's engineering soul; the museums run from science to Mané-Katz. Musical life is anchored by the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, the city's resident ensemble, performing at the Haifa Auditorium on the Carmel — orchestra and hall (the record's plain "Auditorium") both documented in the concert record. A golden dome, a funicular through the rock, a symphony on the ridge: Haifa earns its view.