Day Three in Israel

3/22/2008
The beauty of this region is breathtaking. The lake is beautiful and glassy. The cities are so white against the green mountains. Our guide showed us a picture of this area in 1908. It was a wasteland, though you would never know it by looking at it today! It’s amazing what can change over the course of 100 years.

We drove to Nazareth this morning. We didn’t actually tour the city. Instead we went to an overlook. Ancient Nazareth is in the middle of modern Nazareth (this wasn’t the case for most of the ancient cities). There isn’t much to see, just a courtyard and a church. At the very top of the hill, there was a Christian church and beside it stood a minaret. This is so telling of the tension that exists here. On the other side of the overlook, a massive valley stretched before us, the Valley of Jezreel (which contains the plain of Megiddo). It’s not hard to imagine all the armies of the earth assembling there to battle Jesus and His army. We get to visit Megiddo later this week.






Zippori, a Roman city, was the next stop today. The ruins were pretty cool. The cardo, or main street, still had the ruts from the wagon wheels in it. The mosaics on the floors of the buildings were magnificent. There is one called the Mona Lisa of Zippori because her eyes follow you when you walk. This place had indoor plumbing and a theater, along with numerous other buildings.






On the way to our next stop, Gilla told us about the reforestation efforts going on in Israel. The government actually plants a tree for every child that is born. How cool is that? People also plant trees in honor of the deceased, anniversaries, birthdays, marriages and other big events, etc. Americans could learn something there!

Next up was the coastal city of Acco, and the ancient city of Acre. We had three options for lunch today: schwarma (shaved lamb in a pita), falafel (similar to hush puppies but made of chick peas in a pita), or chicken schnitzel (breaded chicken in a pita). Hmmm. Interesting. The guy that owned the restaurant was the picture of capitalism. He kicked some kids out because he needed the table. It was a sight to behold!

There was a Muslim couple having wedding pictures taken in the ancient city of Acre. Oh the irony. Acre was a crusader city. The refectorium (dining hall) was massive. It took four men to reach all the way around one of the stone pillars. We experienced the Templars tunnel too. We emerged into the Turkish market. That was cool. It was our first true interaction with the people of Israel, though these people were mostly Muslim. The tension between the traditional Muslim and the modern Muslim was striking. The traditional women were of course dressed very modestly with their heads covered. The modern Muslims were dressed… how shall we say… immodestly. The looks exchanged were priceless. Those looks were only topped by the looks our group (all 50 of us Southern Baptists with a Jewish guide) got when we mistakenly joined a Hamas (green flags and all) parade celebrating Muhammed’s birthday. Oh the joy. The streets are so narrow that we could not get around them.

We walked along the coast too. The water was beautiful, almost as clear as the pictures I have seen of Greece. There were kids jumping off a very high wall into the sea below. Some of those kids couldn’t have been more than 8 years old. Crazy!





We ended the day by driving to Israel’s northern most coastal boundary, Rosh Ha’Nikra. We walked up to the Lebanon border and watched gun boats patrolling the border. We got a few shots of the young Israeli soldiers working there (all Israeli citizens serve in the army for a minimum of three years). The beauty of the coastline was breathtaking. I wanted to go swimming!