Advertisement
Published: April 3rd 2008
Edit Blog Post
Gamla hike
Sweethearts for life...Heather & Ben. Although our time in Israel has come and now gone (by about 4 weeks) we haven't had a good chance to post any comments on that part of the trip until now. It was quite an experience and so should still be fresh on our minds.
We arrived in Tel Aviv on Saturday a day later than expected (since we missed our flight out of Athens the day before). I knew that most things shut down on the Sabbath but didn't realize that their Sabbath was on Saturday. There were no buses, shuttles, etc to get us to Tiberius, our first place to stay. We were getting quite concerned and thought we might have to take a cab at an exorbitant price. Everything I read said driving in Israel was horrendous. We decided to just rent a car (which was not too expensive) and drive to Tiberius. The driving was not bad at all....especially since there were hardly any cars on the road for Sabbath : )
We stopped in Cesaria along the way and weren't expecting as much from it since we just came from Rome and Athens and had already seen so many ancient ruins. Boy were
Cesarea
Ben standing in front of the large Roman theater in Cesarea...very well preserved. we wrong. The ruins at Cesaria were in better shape, less crowded, and much more intimate than any we saw before. We hadn't made the connection of Cesaria with the apostle Paul but stumbled onto a sign explaining that it was at Cesaria that Paul was brought before Roman authorities, almost beaten, appealed to Cesar as was his right as a Roman citizen, and left for Rome from the small port in Cesaria. It was neat to think that just the day before we stood on the rock in Athens from which Paul preached to the Athenians. Travel has gotten so much faster and safer....and we didn't even get ship-wrecked.
Then we continued to drive to Tiberius and found our lodging at the YMCA along the Sea of Galilee. It was a beautiful place although it needed a grounds keeper. We got off to a bit of a slow start exploring the Golan Heights but had a lot of fun driving through the country side. It is a beautiful place and everywhere you look are rocks, rocks, and more rocks. There were lots of old rock dwellings and villages long since abandoned. We hiked to Gamla which was a
Cesarea
Paul's appeal to Ceasar. historically significant in that it was the most impregnable strong hold against the Romans in the Galilee area but was eventually breached and all its inhabitants executed save 2 women who managed to escape. It was quite an experience to literally stand in the hole in the wall through which the Romans took the city and stand on the rock precipice off which the captured jews we thrown to their death.
We also hiked to a beautiful waterfall but were not allowed to hike the whole circuit because it required swimming across the waterfall pools and the water was considered too cold in "winter". Cold for Israel is a relative temperature...if felt like a warm summer day in Alaska. I really don't know how we'd handle visiting in the Summer. There are many places to hike in the Golan but it seems to take more time and research than we had. One visitor told us he just starts hiking through the fields and pasture land and has met many interesting people that way.
That night we walked around Tiberius, to the market, through the food stalls, grocery store, and tourist area. We noticed the most people at one
Golan hike
Heather is taking in the view from a cave overlooking the city of Tiberius. Falafel stand and got our first falafel there. They are fried chick-pea balls stuffed in a pita bread and filled with toppings like hummus, onion salad, sauteed fruits and citrus, French fries, mango and cucumber sauces, cole-slaws, and my favorite: fried egg plant. They are really great and we were pleasantly surprised after our friends Bub 'n Bonny described them as "awful falafel". But we learned what they meant the next two times we tried them when our guy was closed. Maybe he didn't have the only good falafel in Israel but we stopped searching after two of the awful variety. We also got some great apples at the market and told the merchant so....then he showed us the box: "Johnny Gold - USA". But we also bought them cheaper than we could ever buy them back home....go figure : )
We were surprised several times by the number of young men and women carrying machine guns. These were soldiers on leave, some in uniform but most out of uniform. It was quite unlike our US military and a little disappointing. Once in the town center of Tiberius on a late night we noticed about 12 guys that looked
Golan hike
One of the spectacular waterfalls we hiked to in the Golan. about 18 or 19 with machine guns slung over shoulders or hanging from shoulder straps or carried by their barrels. What was odd was they were dressed like hoodlums at the local mall and behaving about the same. I came with a pre-conceived admiration for the Israeli military but it was quite different than I expected. Often the soldiers we saw in uniform had their shirts untucked and hats cocked to the side and just seemed to slouch. They dropped their guns a number of times and driving by the many small military posts in the Golan Heights we noticed mosts were kind of trashy and unkempt. I'm sure that that is not the full picture as we notice things out of place more than anything else. I guess we're also used to our own military who, though their personal lives may or may not be different, their military presence, dress, and public appearance is very sharp.
The next day we rented bikes and rode around the Sea of Galilee. It was great fun and much more intimate than visiting the pilgrimage sites, which were often very developed crowded. We stopped for lunch in a kibbutz that had the
Gamla hike
Ben standing next to catapult used by the Romans to besiege the city of Gamla. black and white dairy cows that Heather always misses from back home in Wisconsin. They also have holiday lodges along the Sea. We got to talking with the waiter, a member of the Kibbutz. Most Israelis have strong political opinions that run the entire spectrum and are not shy to voice them. We have noticed everywhere we go that it seems as though the whole world is watching our presidential candidates....even in Nepal. And we've been asked several times why our dollar is dropping in Nepal. Maybe this is a side note but we've also not experienced any negative attitude toward America anywhere along the trip. I heard often that attitudes toward Americans were turning negative but if so, it must be other places or people than we've visited. This trip has made us very aware of our citizenship. Walking past a US Embassy building brings about a lot of feelings and emotions. Of course hearing raunchy, un-cut American pop music in Tiberius also evokes a lot of feelings. I wander how Paul felt about his Roman citizenship.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0521s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sandra Kay
non-member comment
Israel - something for everyone
I enjoyed reading your blog on Israel. My husband and I returned from a tour of that small, but mighty, country on 3/10/08. We landed in Tel Aviv and made a circuit through Caesarea, Tiberias, The Sea of Galilee, Jerusalem, and back to Tel Aviv. A highlight was sailing on the Sea of Galilee, eating St Peter's fish, stopping at the museum to see the remains of the 2000 year old Jesus Boat. Awesome, was my husband's baptism in the Jordan River. Exhausting, was the climb up to the falls at EnGedi--a climb I won't do again, if I'm lucky enough to go back to Israel. Our tour guide, Amir, warned us it was a tough climb, but did I listen? (: Hot and dusty, was the walk through the ruins of the city of Masada, that Herod built on top of a mountain. Amazing, the ongoing archeology digs; some of which we were permitted to walk among. We strolled down the Avenue of Palms, where Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. We visited the Garden of Gethsemene, where He prayed to be spared the agony of crusifixion. We saw where it is believed He was crusified, entombed and arose, because of the skull configuration of the rock, as stated in the bible. We floated in the Dead Sea, where the salt content is so high, you can't sink. And, I'll confess, I bought the Miracle Mask made from the mud of the Dead Sea. It's supposed to have amazing qualities. Thank you for allowing me to revisit my trip through your blog.