Advertisement
Published: January 17th 2015
After waking up at 2 a.m. this morning, I was unable to fall back to sleep undoubtedly because of the excitement of what was in store for the rest of the day. After spending a few hours thinking and not able to sleep, I got up and went about getting ready for the day at about 5:00 a.m. Our bags were out by 6:00 a.m. and John and I decided that since our hotel was on the beach, we should go down before breakfast and take a walk on the beach. Granted, it is January and not that warm, so it was going to be a quick walk. Julie, thanks for the prompt. It was worth it. It was a beautiful morning and it felt invigorating to be out on our own for that short period of time. I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants legs and stepped into the Mediterranean Sea. While our hotel was on the beach, we had to go down many flights of stairs to get there so we had our morning exercise as well.
Once back at the hotel, we had a wonderful breakfast. This is a Mediterranean diet
Early morning frolic
Julie, this is for you!and consists of lots of vegetables, eggs, beets, salads, fruits, cereal, breads and pastries.
By 8:00 we were on the bus for a trip north to Caesarea Maritima, the old capital of the Roman Province. It is located midway between Tel Aviv and Haifa on the Israeli coastal plain. When we arrived, we were shown a short video of the history of Caesarea dating back to Herod the Great about 25-13 BC. We saw the Roman and Crusader ruins and the harbor from which St. Paul was taken prisoner to Rome. It was fascinating hearing about the technique used to construct these structures. There was no cement back then and the stone was sandstone, so it was soft, but nonetheless the technique they used back then was able to withstand the test of time and has lasted over 2000 years. It was amazing. We saw one mosaic tile that was just excavated a year ago. Since George, our tour guide, is a stickler for time management, we boarded the bus for Mount Carmel.
At the western edge of Mount Carmel is Stella Maris Monastery, the world headquarters of the Carmelite’s,
a Catholic religious order. A small cave under the monastery is held by a Christian tradition to be a place where Elijah occasionally lived as people on Mount Carmel have lived in caves since prehistoric times.
Next stop, Nazareth. John and I agree that this was the highlight thus far in our pilgrimage. We visited the Basilica of the Annunciation. The lower church contains the grotto which was the home of Mary and the Site of the Annunciation along with remnants of churches from the Crusader and Byzantine eras. It was a very moving experience that brought tears to my eyes as I thought about Mary getting the announcement by the angel Gabriel of her conception of Jesus. Afterwards, Father celebrated Mass. Next, we walked a short distance to view the Church of St. Joseph’s Workshop. Churches were built over some of these sites to protect them from destruction.
We checked into our Hotel in Nazareth where we get to stay for 3 nights. That is exciting news. We had a chance to rest before dinner which was again a buffet with salmon and chicken, lots of salads and vegetables and deserts that were
made entirely without dairy so that they were kosher.
After dinner John and I joined a few people in our group along with Dennis our Tour Director for a meditation which turned out to be an educational experience. He has a wealth of knowledge about the Bible and history of the early church.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.364s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.1159s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Deborah
non-member comment
We had to get a map out!
Loving your blog and the photos. We are now much better educated on where Israel is ? thanks for sharing, hope you sleep well tonight xo