Haifa Travel Forum

shalom !! it seems that bahai gardens reservation is closed on fridays and saturdays. but can you visit these gardens on fridays or sat, provided you booked before ? thanks valerie (from cloudy paris)

As far as I know they are open 7 days a week with the exception of certain holidays... or weather.

Even when the Temple itself is closed, the gardens are usually open.

The reservation is for the guided tour of the gardens. You can visit the gardens without a guided tour 7 days a week. Only, if you visit on your own, you can't go to some parts of the gardens. Anyway, I don't think it's that important. The places you can only visit on the tours are the stairs leading from one platfrom to the other.

Shalom, Shalom:
We visited the upper garden terraces on a guided tour last year (you can see the photos on my pages if you like). Both the upper and lower terraces are ONLY open to tours that are guided by the BaHai faithful who come from around the world to volunteer their work and time for a year. We visited on a Friday and as far as I can determine they are open most days of the year with the exception of "rememberance day" for the Bab.
There are some small gardens adjacent to the shrine that can be visited without a tour, but they are the less important and less visually striking of the gardens.
It could be that the actual "making of reservations" is closed on Friday and Saturday but the tours are still given.
Martin

Martin,

I visited all 3 platforms and the shrine itself and never took a guided tour. The only difference between a guided tour and a free visit is you cannot take the stairs from one platform to the other unless you take the tour. As the stairs are the dullest parts of the gardens, I never bothered with reserving a guided tour. I just drove from one plaform to the other.

Hi Gil, what you are telling me is interesting. When we contacted the Bahai office to find out visiting hours we were told "only guided tours".
As for the central stairs, it is around them that the gardens are centered and you need them to access the entire garden, you can only reach the three "platforms" without them. We were there with friends and we all thought that it was well worth the walk down the stairs to reach the small pools and water elements that you cannot even see in detail otherwise.
Possibly they have changed the policy of their guided tours, maybe too many visitors and not enough guides...but I think the guided tours are a good idea, you get some of the history and you also prevent vandalism.
Martin

Well. The last time I was there, showing the gardens to Andie's parents it was last May. I don't know if they changed their policy during the last year. I do plan to actually take the guided tour some time... Only, I'm not that planned.

Gil now is a much easier time to make "unplanned" visits to the gardens, only 2 years ago when they opened there was a waiting list several MONTHS long....now it is possible to get tours for the same week.
Enjoy my friend, they are very beautifully designed,
Martin

We did the guided tour last year -- 7 of us. It was a mistake as we were assigned to a group of Russians and the guide spoke only Russian. It took far too long and was extremely boring. I would suggest that you go in and wander where you can.

Cheers