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For this blog:

This blog is about our trip to the Middle East - Israel, Jordan and Egypt.  At the end of this trip we flew to London where we had a one day tour.  Then we took a bus to Southampton where we boarded the Queen Mary for a one week, North Atlantic, crossing to New York. 

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More (category) Albums:  Photos, not in the blog, that fit a certain category. 
    

    Abstracts - Israel

    Abstracts - Jordan

    Abstracts - Egypt

   Camels

   More Israel    

   More Jordan

   More Egypt

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Sep 25 – Flight to Israel

We are flying El Al, the official Israeli airline, to Tel Aviv this morning.  This airline is considered one of the safest in the world and we can see why.  Early this morning the taxi took us to the airport and dropped us off at what is a terminal exclusive to El Al.  There was an outside waiting room/building where we waited until the doors opened at exactly 3 hours prior to departure time. 

We had to show our tickets to get into the terminal and there we got into a line where we waited to get our passports checked.  From there we went to the screening counter where we were asked a number of questions regarding our travel and our luggage.  Everything was then tagged with a security screening tag. Then it was off to the ticket counter to check in and drop off our checked luggage.  Then passport control…where it looked like he must have checked every passport stamp in our passport…took a while.  Then our hand luggage underwent the usual security screening...but with a pretty through inspection of a lot of the items that they took out of our carryon.  Fortunately, we passed so we could then head to the waiting area. 

The waiting area had bathrooms, a small duty-free shop, and a small café where we got a light breakfast.  This area is totally separated from all the other terminals in the airport.  El Al passengers are kept totally separate from other passengers…no killing time by wandering the concourses and terminals.

Eventually a bus came to pick us up and drop us off at our aircraft.  The flight itself was comfortable and we were given a light snack. 

First sight of Israel from the plane.

We were met inside by a greeter who helped us to a much shorter passport checkpoint.  We were through quite quickly, but the luggage took quite a while to come out.  But at least everything showed up this time.

We were at our hotel late afternoon.  It is rather hot and humid but not unbearably so.  Turns out our hotel is only about a block from a very long beach.  Downside…today is the Jewish New Years.  The start of a 3-day holiday.  And almost everything is closed.  Our hotel has a buffet available, but it is $150 per person.  That is awfully expensive in general.  And we only want a light dinner, so it is pretty steep.  So we decided to walk down the beach to see if there are some snack/light dinner options.  Most of the restaurants are at big hotels and they are fully booked for the holiday.  We eventually found an ice cream shop that had crepes so we both opted for a crepe for dinner.  But they had nothing savory…so it was dessert for dinner. 

The weather is lovely with a light breeze off the water.  Could get used to this. 

Sep 26 – Biblical Highlights of Galilee

We were up way too early for a quick breakfast at the breakfast buffet, and then off on our first sightseeing tour…Biblical Highlights of Galilee.  The countryside is pretty dry but there are a number of olive orchards along the way.

Our first stop was Nazareth…

where the bus dropped us off at a shop.  This was our bathroom break plus there was a lot of shopping conducted.  The merchandise was mainly Christian and Jewish.  Some beautiful work but we bought nothing.

We then walked up the hill to the Basilica of the Annunciation.  Tradition holds that this was the site where the Angel, Gabriel, told Mary that she would conceive and bare the Christ Child.  There was an early shrine here, commissioned by Emperor Constantine I.  There was a later Byzantine church built over the sight and even later a crusader church.  Another church went up in the 17^th century.  The much larger, current basilica was built in the 1960’s to accommodate the growing crowds visiting the site.

The interior of the basilica is rather austere but is solidly beautiful. 

An “original” grotto can be seen in the lowers level.

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More Basilica of the Annunciation
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There are many images of Mary, mainly mosaics, around the upper church.

There is also a large courtyard that has many wonderful Mary icons from all over the world.  

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More Basilica of the Annunciation Murals
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From there we walked over to St. Joseph’s Church.  

The area of most interest here was the underground with mosaics

and small chapels.

The drive then took us to Tabgha to visit the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes.  The small church was relatively simple...

but it had a lovely mosaic floor in the altar area of the church.  

And the design just in front to the altar was of a basket of loaves flanked by two fish. 

Nearby we stopped to view and photograph the Sea of Galilee...

and the nearby statue of St. Peter.

Then it was on to the next stop…Capharnaum, Jesus’ town.

There was the House of Peter.  You can see the ruins, but that entire area is covered by a church suspended over the site.

There was also the synagogue where Jesus supposedly taught.

By then it was early afternoon and we stopped at a local, roadside restaurant that seemed to mainly cater to large tour busses…very long table, large salad bar and limited menu.  Choices were the local fish (whole with the head on), chicken shawarma and falafel.  We had the falafel.  It was very good.  Much more moist than we usually find in the US.

We then drove by the town of Tiberius, a resort town on the Sea of Galilee.  Our next, and last stop was Yardenit.  This is right on the River Jordan and is the reputed site of Jesus’ baptism.

To get to the site required a trip through a very large souvenir shop.  There was a large walkway and patios along the river with places you could go down into the river.  There were a number of people swimming.

Several in our group, including us, too off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pantlegs and went wading into the water.   The water was cool and refreshing.  The big surprise was that there were many small minnows that wanted to nibble at our feet.  Sort of a fishy pedicure.  Felt really strange. 

We were back in Tel Aviv by dinner time.  The hotel had a buffet going tonight…only $50 per person.  Still ridiculously expensive.  Neither of us were very hunger (we had lunch awfully late) so we went back to the ice cream shop.  This time for ice cream.