27 MARCH, 2019 

Tonight is our last night in Israel – or at least the last night sleeping here. We fly out at 11.00pm Sunday, so still a day to fill in. (Posting this a couple of days later.)

Today, Saturday, has been a free day here, as our tour finished Friday night with our group. Mainly drinks, and now the different parties are heading off in different directions – some for more travel, and others, like us, heading home – though via a three-day stopover in Bangkok. Jonathan was brave and headed back to Masada for a pre-dawn walk up the mountain and a microlite paraglide flight.

The last few days have been a bit overwhelming, with quite a bit of travel, and lots to see. In some ways we have left the best to last but at a time when we are travel-weary, and maybe with not enough time to absorb the richness of the landscape, and the layers of history hidden in the stones and fields and brought to life with our  imaginations.

We left Bethlehem on Wednesday, skirting Jerusalem though it is never really out of sight, and heading East towards the Dead Sea where we turn north and follow the Jordan Valley all the way to the Sea of Galilee. Immediately to the East of Jerusalem, the landscape changes to the weather-worn and barren hills of the Judean Desert. It is downhill all the way as we descend from the high plains around the ancient city at around 900 metres above sea level to the floor of the valley at 450 metres below sea level. Highway 90 runs along the length of the country, and that is our path to Galilee.
The drive traverses the familiar names of Bethany (now called Al-Eizariya), Nazareth, Capernaum, Nazareth, Caesarea, and Sam our guide, points out all the places where tradition and history have sited the famous stories of the Bible. At Bethany there was the raising of Lazarus. The town could do with a similar redemptive miracle today, as it has turned into a place of neglect and crime.

Jericho is the town where Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus. Sam was pretty keen to locate the desert wilderness to the west of Jericho as the place of the temptations of Jesus. It is certainly rugged, but I think Sam was being a bit too confident. Not that it really matters. But some monks seem to be keen on the idea and have established a monastery in the hills just in case.

Along the drive north, the landscape transitions from dry plains and rugged hills, to green and lush pastures, orchards, and farms of all kinds, supported by the waters of the Jordan. How the Jordan manages this is a mystery, as it is a very narrow stream, and the irrigated lands are vast. The date palms are ubiquitous, even in the dry southern areas.

Finally we reach the Sea of Galilee, and drive along the eastern side, around to Gennesaret, another site for a miracle, and on to Tabgha, the site where tradition has it that Jesus performed the miracle of feeding 5000 (not including women and children!). As we have come to expect there is a church built on the site.

The most interesting place for us was Capernaum. Here the lush Galilean hills fold down to the waters of the lake, and it is not hard to imagine this as the place where Jesus began his ministry, called his disciples, met ordinary people and taught and healed as recorded in the Gospels. There is an archaeological site here that includes a synagogue and parts of a village, including (according to tradition) the home of Simon Peter’s mother. It is quite fascinating (and beyond fascinating) to see what life could have been like. These are real homes of people, the synagogue just metres from the houses, and the waters of the lake just a short walk where the fishermen’s boats would have been dragged on to the beach.

Our tour included a short ride on the lake in a replica fishing boat, though several times larger than the originals. Peter and his mates would have loved the diesel motors.
We finished the day at Nazareth, as we began to head further east towards the Mediterranean coast. This was the town where Jesus grew up, matured, and announced to the world his mission, and was promptly kicked out of town for his impertinence.

After an overnight stay in Nazareth, we boarded our bus to head first to Acre an ancient port city and home to a crusader fort, revealed in archaeological diggings in recent years. The fascinating history of this place is peeled back as different layers emerge. I guess this really illustrates how different civilisations have put down a community which is overtaken and destroyed by another, and another. The fort and hospitaller that have been uncovered are beautiful and the buildings illustrate the lives of the chivalric orders that occupied it in the 12th and 13th centuries. Sam asked us our ideas on whether the Crusades were a good or bad thing.  I was hesitant to offer a view, realising that I could  be silent and possibly seen as  ignorant or foolish, or venture an opinion and remove any doubt – but that has never stopped me in the past, so I ventured that maybe they were not such a great thing. It turned out that Sam had pretty strong ideas himself, seeing the Crusades as necessary to restore the Christian heritage in Israel. From the other side of the planet, our perspective is not so bound up in the religious and cultural milieu that informs local opinions. The tensions and strains are not too deep below the surface, and of course they spill over into more overt expressions from time to time. And being 800 years removed from the world that created the Crusades is not helpful either. Lesson learned today – keep quiet!

By now we are heading south towards Tel Aviv and stopping at Haifa for lunch and a quick viewing of the magnificent hanging gardens of the Bahai Temple. Then on to Caesarea, the site of Roman and Herodian buildings. The lunch was something to behold. The proud proprietor of El’kheir’s authentic Druze cuisine championed the endless supply of dishes that graced our table – it was almost as if each dish brought forth was another of his favoured children as he beamed broadly and flourished the dish before us. The flavours were amazing, and we were all stunned at the richness and subtlety of flavours – except for one of us who restricts himself to fries and sauce (not me, I hasten to add.) At one stage we all had to move as the tables were strained beyond their intended burden of this burgeoning feast and could contain no more. Jen and I agree that we are new fans of Middle Eastern food, and Druze takes some beating.

I wish we could have had more time at Caesarea. While time has eroded so much of the ancient buildings, the beach sands have also served to preserve much of the infrastructure. Looking at the long and narrow hippodrome, complete with stands for the crowds, it did not take too much imagination to hear the thunder of hooves on stone, the yelling of the crowds, the cries from the maimed participants and the crashing of chariots. The adjacent theatre with its semicircular tiers of seating is still used today, though the floodlights might be a more recent addition.

Israel is such a small country, and in no time we reached Tel Aviv, a bustling urban space with freeways, traffic jams, blaring horns, a magnificent beach front – and our hotel, the Metropolitan. Our digs are a short walk to the beachfront which has many restaurants and a mysterious and heavily guarded building that I discovered was the US Consulate. I was reaching in my bag to find my camera but a security chap started towards me in a rather menacing tone, so I missed the pic.

Well, dear friends, I have created a more pictorial presentation of our free day in Tel Aviv and Old Jaffa and this is on Facebook – I see that it has had many viewings. Maybe folk prefer to look than to read. Anyway, the link to that is here: https://www.facebook.com/bill.lang.549

Shalom