A Journal, with Pictures

Moth­er Nature forced a change in the itin­er­ary with snow on our route to Galilee. Instead, we drove north up the coast and then turned inland to Galilee. Our first stop was at Cae­sarea, which is the ruin of a city built by Herod the Great, dur­ing the 22 to 9 BCE peri­od. The ruins include a well-pre­served amphithe­ater, race track (char­i­ot rac­ing), baths, mar­ket, and admin­is­tra­tive build­ings sur­round­ed by a wall and moat. Herod built a palace for Ceasar and him­self and includ­ed a har­bor. A sig­nif­i­cant aque­duct brought water to the com­mu­ni­ty. Inscrip­tions on a tablet in the ruin con­firm the exis­tence of Pon­tius Pilate Roman Gov­er­nor of Bib­li­cal fame.

Our next stop on our jour­ney north was the city of Haifa, which is Israel’s third-largest city and a major port. One of the major tourist sites is the Baha’i World Cen­tre. The immac­u­late­ly main­tained grounds include ter­raced gar­dens on the slopes of Mount Carmel, the bur­ial place of the founder of the reli­gion as well as admin­is­tra­tion build­ings. Also in Haifa is the ancient walled city of Acre, also known as Akka and Akko, which was built as the head­quar­ters of the Knights Tem­pler. This group of cru­saders was monas­tic sol­diers whose mis­sion was to pro­tect the Holy Land and the vis­it­ing Chris­t­ian pil­grims. The city had under­ground pas­sage­ways that per­mit­ted the inhab­i­tants to safe­ly trans­fer and hide their treasure.

We then drove to the north­ern tip of Isre­al at the Lebanese bor­der. The cur­rent bor­der was estab­lished by the UN fol­low­ing Israel’s incur­sion to elim­i­nate PLO bases being used to attack their coun­try. The line is marked by fences and out­posts. We vis­it­ed the place where an Israeli unit was attacked by a sui­cide bomber result­ing in a major loss of life. There were a series of Hezbol­lah attacks and counter-attacks in this area but there have been no recent inci­dents. We observed Lebanese sol­diers and an Israeli patrol boat.  The bor­der point is acces­si­ble by cable car.

The next stop was the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights.