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August 23rd 2008
We arrived in Paris on Wednesday, August 20 evening and checked into our hostel: St. Christopher's. We lucked out because they over booked us so they had to send us to the next door Holiday Inn for the same price. Probably the best accomodations we have had on the trip. A great way to end a two month trip. The next morning we spent 7 hours visiting the Louvre. We were a little tired after so we wandered up the Avenue des Champs-Élysées: the most prestigious street in Paris. After a beer, we visited the Arch de Triumph, then found a cheap sushi restaurant on our way to visit the Eiffel Tower at night. For the first time on our trip it rained on us all day so we spent Friday visiting museums. We visited the ... read more
August 19th 2008
We are back in Athens after some great partying in Ios. We took the time to relax and visit the port of Athens. On the port we visited the maritime museum on the Battleship Averoff, the most important and celebrated ship in modern Greek history. Next stop is Paris before we fly home.... read more
August 18th 2008
So we made it to Ios... Not a whole lot of sights to talk about just the beautiful scenary, the beach, and the crazy night life. We have been hanging out with Judy and a friend of hers named Andreas. Lots of fun, but after 6 nights the lifestyle is starting to take its toll and we are close to being ready to move on. Two more nights and then off to Athens for a couple nights and finally our last stop Paris, which we will take us back to some serious sight seeing... and of course the odd beverage here or there.... read more
August 6th 2008
Well after a quick flight from Tel Aviv and a nice cold Stella as we waited we made it to Athens. With the help of some great directions we settled in to Judy's (a friend) apartment late that night. Thanks Judy! With 3 full days in Athens and another after we visit the Greek island Ios we decided to pace the sightseeing with a number of beer breaks. So in the morning we hit the National Archeological Museum. We spent a few hours there and stopped for a few patio pints throughout the day. We took advantage of the kitchen at our disposal and had a huge pasta meal. The next morning we woke up and visited the the National History Museum and then the highlight of Athens... the Acropolis. After a day walking in the ... read more
August 6th 2008
In Haifa, we got a great hotel up on the hill and had a great view of the whole city including the Baha'i Gardens. We all went out for supper in Haifa that night and afterwards Jarin decided to crash early because he wanted to be rested for scuba diving the next day. Dad and I hit the Irish house which was packed and had live Irish music: great time. We obviously had to rub it into Jarin's face the next morning especially since the scuba diving was unfortunately cancelled because of weatehr conditions. The next day we visited Caesarea and again saw another great archeological site. This was the main port of Herod the Great and the Romans for about 200 years. We were disapointed that we could not scuba dive and see the ... read more
August 3rd 2008
Since we had another great night in Jerusalem, we departed Jerusalem with our rental car a little late on Friday morning. We changed plans as we were heading north and decided to hit the archeological ruins of Bet She'an. One of the best preserved sites I have ever seen. It was the capital of the Decapolis trading cites during Roman times. Afterwards, we continued north to the Sea of Galilee. We drove around the east coast of the sea and stopped in Capernaum in the north. Capernaum was where Jesus made his home base during his ministry years. Next we visited a Church that was determined to be the site where Jesus did the miracle of mulitplying 4 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed thousands. We finished the day relaxing in Tiberias (where ... read more
July 30th 2008
We spent Wednesday and Thursday in Jeruslem. We started Wednesday a little slow because we went out and partied at Rivlin street (10 minute walk west of the Christian quarter until about 04:30). Around 09:30 we took a bus to Bethlehem in the West Bank (Palestine area), in which we had to cross a wall because Israel is building a wall to separate the Palestine areas from Israel. While we were in Bethlehem I was talking to our local tour guide and he talked as if he was in prison; strange how two major Christian sites and cities so close together could be so far apart. In Bethlehem, we visited the Church of the Nativity, which is where Christmas mass is broadcasted around the world every year, and we saw the silver star which marked the ... read more
July 29th 2008
Got up and had a quick breakfast and rented a car for the day to visit Masada in central Israel. Masada is an ancient fortress built on a mountain. Its significance is that in 73 or 74 AD there was the Great Jewish Revolt. 1000 Jews held out against a Roman seige of over 15,000 soldiers for more than 3 months. Once they knew they would not win the battle the Jews under their leader Eleazar Ben Yair decided to commit a mass suicide (including all women and children) rather than be taken prisoner by the Romans. The sight was a major hightlight and a very significant event for Jews in thier history. ... read more
July 24th 2008
The day started early in which we drove to the crusader castle Shobak. It was in incredible shape despite being conquered by Saladin (Arab Muslims) after the major city Christian city of Karak fell in the 12th century. Afterwards, we drove to Madaba to checked out a cool cathedral with a pilgrammage mosaic of the floor. The church was called St. George's. Right beside the city was Mount Nebo, the memorial site of Moses where he finally saw the promised land of Canaan and then died. The last stop of the day was the Dead Sea, there we floated on the surface with no effort because of its exremely high salt content. We crashed in Amman, the capital city of Jordan. The next day we visited the ancient city of Jerash, which was one of the ... read more
July 23rd 2008
Finally the tour of Petra has arrived. Petra is one of the new 7 wonders of the world, and it lived up to all the hype. The most impressive ancient ruins were the Treasury (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade used its facade), the Monastery on the hill, and the Royal tombs. One of the interesting things was that the culture that flourished in this ancient city were the Nabata. I know what you are thinking, we never heard of them before either but apparently they had control of much of the trading routes during Jesus' times, and were eventually conquered by the Romans like everyone else in the area. We are now half-way through Jordan and heading north to Amman (captital city) tomorrow.... read more
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