Beautiful Haifa

The Dan Panorama in Haifa was the best of all hotels we stayed at in Israel. We woke up around 7:30am and went to have breakfast. Around 10am we picked up my grandparents, as well as Rina a few minutes later, and the five of us headed to Bet She’arim. In typical style, the signs were really bad and we struggled to find the destination.

Once we got there, though, we had a wonderful time. We had a tour guide for the five of us. We saw catacombs of Jews from the 2nd and 4th centuries. There were a number of caves we were able to walk through as well.

Beit She’arim with Grandparents and Rina

Burial Sarcophagi

Cave where glass was made

Some folks joined our group

Great Restaurant in Atlit

After dropping the 3 at their needed destinations, Tobia and I started heading to Caesarea for Yaron and Inbar’s wedding. On the way we stopped in Atlit to have a great lunch which consisted of humus, various salads, fries, and fish. It was delicious. It was a quick drive to Caesarea from Atlit.

We rested in our room for a while and showered/prepared, and finally headed to the wedding at 6:45pm. We saw the bride and groom, hung out, had a nice meal, and ultimately came back to the hotel to wrap up the night.

Yaron and Inbar’s Wedding (set-up) in Caesarea	Beautiful View and colors	Self Portrait
Happy Tobia	Yaron, Inbar – Under Huppa	Yaron, Inbar- Dancing

Me at breakfast at Tulip Inn

Migdal

I clonked out hard last night at 9:30pm and woke up naturally at 7am. After a slow breakfast, we left Tverya towards Migdal to go see some ruins of Mary Magdalene’s home. The problem was, we couldn’t find it. I ended up walking into a Synagogue to ask about the place, and was eventually helped out as well as given food after conversing with the gentlemen doing the morning prayer. Prior to giving me directions, the Rabbi sat me down with a whole bunch of people, someone came up behind me and put a Yarmulke on my head, two guys took my hands, and apparently there was a prayer that involved me. It felt pretty awkward for me, as I was “blasphemously” dressed in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt (on the Sabbath), not to mention, I’m not exactly what one would call a “person of religion”.

We followed the new directions and were able to see some ruins that are said (by some) to represent Mary’s home.

Rosh Hanikra looking South	Israel-Lebanon Sea border	Inside Grotto, beautiful water colors	Loud, mysterious flow	Serene and beautiful
Awesome colors	Rugged Cliff	Distances	Tropical Fruit Stand

From there, we headed off to Rosh Hanikra- the north west corner of Israel, which has, to the west, the Mediterranean, and to the north- Lebanon. There were pretty impressive coastal views from atop the Rosh Hanikra mountain, as well as a cable car that led us down close to the water where we saw lovely grottos with parts of the sea flowing into them. I think it was one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

Yotveta Drinks

Without very solid plans, we tentatively decided to drive south into Haifa. We ended up going to Bat Galim where we had cold Yotvata drinks, which were delicious and cooled us down despite the 37 degree weather outside. During drinks, we decided we’d make a quick trip to Nazareth before meeting up with my grandparents at 6pm later in the day. It was around 1pm at this time.

Getting to Nazareth took about 25 minutes. It took another 35 just to cross about a mile of the old city and see the Church of the Annunciation- built on top of the grotto where Mary lived. We observed Catholic mass. I will remember two things from Nazareth: the first was the church as an architectural piece, and the second, the horrendous traffic flow in the city. There was 1 lane in each direction, but roughly 2 or sometimes 3 pseudo-lanes were being created by cars cramming into lanes that simply were not there. Folks were U-turning in the middle of the road, and people forced their way into spaces that did not exist. There was very little honking, and people were quite calm driving, but I gotta say that was the most tough driving of my life and I was anything but calm. I was probably the only person that was rattled. At some point I just had to laugh about it, there was simply nothing I could do.

Nazareth Souk	Church of Annunciation	Mass inside Church of Annunciation	‘Respectable’ attire
Mary’s Grotto	Worst Traffic Situation of my life #1	Worst Traffic Situation of my life #2	Worst Traffic Situation of my life #3

From Nazareth, we had just enough time to get some lunch before heading off to my grandparents’ house. We returned to Haifa planning to eat at an awesome restaurant we both love- Abu Yusef, in the downtown. A bit lost at one point, a cop car pulled up to us and the two cops helped lead us to the restaurant we had trouble finding. The food was marvelous!

Abu Youssef #1

Abu Youssef #2

Abu Youssef #3

Beautiful Haifa

After the restaurant, for one of the first times in the trip, we didn’t need a map, because I had actually remembered this part of the city from my childhood and led us up to my grandparents’ house at the top of the hill. We had a lovely time at my grandparents’ house, also meeting my grandma’s sister-in-law, as well as my cousin Lital, and her whole family.

A couple hours later, we all headed off. Tobia and I checked into our hotel at Dan Panorama in Haifa, and wound down for the night. We made tentative plans to meet up with my grandparents for a short day trip the next day.

I woke up naturally at 7am this morning. The previous night I fell asleep just before 9:30pm, clearly tired following the Mazada early morning trip.

After a good breakfast at our Tverya hotel, we took off to the Mount of Beatitudes Church.

Breakfast at Tulip Inn

Mount of Beatitudes

Nice view

Inside Mount of Beatitudes

From there we continued on to Qiryat Shemona, and then Metula, where we first saw the Lebanese-Israeli border (The Good Fence), followed by Canada Centre, an olympic sized rink hockey facility.

The Good Fence

Canada Centre

Canada Centre Ice Rink

We continued down south to Nimrod’s fortress where we hiked around the ruins for a while. Just down the mountain from the fortress was Banias, a location where we were able to see Pan’s temple as well as other Greek ruins.

Nimrod’s Fortress	Nimrod’s Fortress Close Up	Nice view from Tower
Octagonal Tower	Large Water Cistern	Temple of Pan
Sand Verses, Banias Nat’l Preserve	Pan’s Grotto	Lovely Scent and Sight of Figs

I really wanted to see Syria and Mt. Hermon, so we headed up the Hermon mountain, getting lost a bunch of times and passing by two Druze villages along the way. After Mt. Hermon, we got lost a couple more times en route to driving around the eastern part of the Gallilee. We came across a great lookout point in the Golan Heights that overlooked a ghost town (Quneitra) in Syria. In the distance, I think we saw Damascus (not sure though).

Village of Majd El Shames below

Mount Hermon

Syrian Ghost Town of Quneitra

We then cut South West and got to Rosh Pinna, a small town which had a few lunch places open. As it was Friday, and we knew that meant things would be closed in the more religious city of Zefat, we decided to pull over and eat. We had some delicious falafel at a small restaurant off the main road there.

Falafel Lunch outside Zefat

Stairs up and down town of Zefat

Following lunch we made the drive up the hill to Zefat. We walked around Zefat, which was fairly quiet due to the Sabbath, but we did come across a very friendly soldier who gave us some suggestions of places to visit in Zefat.

Pretty tired at this point, we decided to return to our hotel in Tverya. We briefly stopped outside a museum containing the Ancient Gallilee boat from roughly the year 100 that sunk in the Kinneret. From there it was a 10 minute drive back to our hotel, where we wound down at the bar with free drinks and some snacks.