Haifa has a number of modern indoor shopping malls, including the Panorama Center in Central Carmel, Migdal Haneve'im in the Hadar District, and the Horev Center on Horev Street at the intersection of Pica Street. The Panorama Center, 1 block from the Central Carmel Carmelit stop, is most easily accessible to visitors staying in the Carmel Center, and offers branches of a number of the country's best women's clothing stores, including Dorin Frankfort and Oui Set. Herzl and Nordau streets make for an interesting window-shopping stroll, but the downtown center of Haifa is not what it once was for quality stores.
Massada Street, with its own Carmelit stop halfway up the mountain between Hadar and the Carmel Center has become home to a number of small, offbeat antique and curiosity shops. My favorite stop here is Yad B'homer Contemporary Crafts Gallery at 9A Massada St. (tel. 04/862-9239). Here you can see the work of eight artisans, as well as special exhibits of guest craftspeople. There is also a shelf of very reasonably priced Ethiopian figurines and Judaica. It's open Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10am to 1pm and 4 to 7pm; Tuesdays and Fridays from 10am to 2pm. Most shops on the street keep similar hours. A walk down Massada Street gives you a feel for the architectural structure of Haifa's residential neighborhoods, with 1930s and '40s apartment buildings virtually climbing up and down the mountain on either side of the street.
If you take an excursion to the artists' village of Ein Hod, south of Haifa, you can shop for silver, enamel, and gold jewelry, hand-blown glass, pottery, and other contemporary crafts at the village's official gallery.
