Day 2 - Sunday, January 22, 2023
My day started at 3:30 am when my mom came into my room looking for tea. Apparently she and my dad had been up for awhile. Unable to go back to sleep after 4 hours of it, I finally gave up and turned on the Eagles game on my tablet and watched then stomp the Giants into the grounds (go Eagles!) while eating a Lindt chocolate bar.
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| I also poked my head out the window to take a photo of the skyline |
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| ugly, delicious shakshuka |
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| also cheese. They eat a LOT of cheese at breakfast. This surprised me! But this was a glorious surprise. I can get behind any people who love cheese as much as I do. |
We then finished packing and brought our luggage down at 7:30 since that was easier than leaving it out by 6:45 for the bellboys to pick up.
We climbed onto our bus for the next 6 days until we enter Jordan where we were pleasantly surprised that it has wifi and charging ports at the seats. My dad is very excited about the charging ports and kept pointing them out for me 😂.
After watching them load our luggage on the tour bus, we settled into our seats and headed to Jaffa, only minutes away from Tel Aviv.
The weather was gorgeous and I was surprised by the number of people I saw in the ocean in January. I saw surfers, kayaker, people paddling while standing, and others doing yoga on the beach. I didn't know that Tel Aviv/Jaffa was so pretty! The beach reminded me of Miami.
We exited the bus and spent about an hour walking through Jaffa. We saw Andromeda's Rock, St. Peter's Catholic Church where Peter had his vision from God as recorded in Acts 10, the Armenian Monastery where Napoleon took his wounded and plague stricken soldiers after the Siege of Jaffa, and the port where Jonah tried to escape from God when he refused to go to Nineveh.
It was about a 45 minute drive to Caesarea where we entered Caesarea National Park, where the admission fee was 39 shekels. Here we explored the ruins of the city built by Herod the Great. Or as our guide Henry said, great at building lots of things, but a terrible person.
The theater was excavated and 20 had been buried under 20 feet of soil. Only the seats at the top of the theater had been visible prior to excavation. The first row still has some original seats, but the rest has been restored and it's still being used today for concerts.
Further in we see Herod the Great's Palace that was built on the water. We can see some pillars remaining from his personal quarters where courtyard and private pool was located. There are still the ruins of some mosaics by his pool. The view from here is amazing! It must be nice to be an evil evil man who only bowed down to the Roman emperor.
The current synagogue, the white synagogue, was built in the 4th century. The roof is long gone, but the pillars still stand. Excavations reveal an older synagogue that would have been here at the time of Jesus, and that was built of local black basalt, not the white limestone of the 4th century synagogue. Because they didn't want to tear down the existing synagogue, only a corner has been excavated showing the black basalt of the earlier one that stood here. In Mark 1, when Jesus heals the man with unclean spirits at the synagogue, that would have taken place at the current location, but in the old building, not the one currently standing. Jesus would not have recognized the current limestone synagogue, He would have been inside a synagogue made of black stone.
Across the way you see a large octagonal church built by the Roman Catholic church. Beneath it is the home of Simon Peter's mother in law. We know this because excavations have found that the house's main room had been plastered from floor to ceiling in the mid first century, a rarity for houses from that time. There are etchings on the plaster walls dating from the first century that say Jesus is King in Greek among the approximately 160 inscriptions found on the plaster walls. It's said that a lot of inscriptions found also mentioned Peter. There are also remnants of votive lamps found in this specific room, which is an indicia of early worship along with hundreds of crosses drawn on the walls. The pottery found here don't contain what is expected from a domestic house but instead that of worship and fellowship. It's apparent that this room was used as a place of worship. It was improved where later there was a stone roof built for this room along with an arch before a better constructed church was built in the 5th century. Capernaum was and remained a small fishing village filled with laborers, farmers, and fishermen. And Matthew the tax collector - he was from Capernaum. The homes here are small and humble, built of local black basalt rock with roofs of wood (branches), mud, and straw.
After this we headed to Yardenit. It's a baptismal site along the Jordan River. It's commercialized, but it's very pretty and peaceful here. There are groups being baptized in the river, and while this been relatively warm, I still wouldn't want to get in that water in January. Especially since I see some big ass fish swimming in there. They have. A ice gift shop I peruse before I get back on the bus to head to our hotel for the night.
Apparently we don't have many choices in lodging in the Tiberias area. Because this hotel (Restal) was not so bueno. The good? The room is a good size and there are 3 beds. They have decent wifi, the roku was easy to hook up, and there's an electric kettle and fridge in the room. But...the ac doesn't work. The staff says there's no ac unless it's the summer and if we tried to turn it on it would be heat. So we left the screened window open. Which was fine. We're on the 5th floor.
But...were on the fifth floor. And there's only one elevator. And it's really small and slow as hell. Trying to get our luggage upstairs was a zoo. Everyone was scrambling and it was nuts. Henry finally told everyone to leave their luggage and head to their floors. Our luggage will take the elevator up to the 5th floor and we can grab it there. So we grabbed our underseat bags and trudged up 6 floors, because the lobby level was not the first floor. We should not have taken our underseat bags 😂. We needed to stop and rest on the third floor.
There's also only one key for our room. And it's literally a key. The last time we had a real key was in Germany, except that was fancy as hell and it was for a thousand year old castle. This...is not. I realize now that I stopped taking photos of our hotel rooms after the first night. Overall it was comfortable enough, but I would liken it to a motel that happened to have internal hallways.
After eating we head back. I'm so tired at this point and we take turns showering in the crappy bath and just sleeping. My head is full from everything we've seen and I'm exhausted. The next day will start early as we head into the upper Galilee region for another full day.
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| if I craned my neck around, I could see the ocean about a block away from our hotel |
We climbed onto our bus for the next 6 days until we enter Jordan where we were pleasantly surprised that it has wifi and charging ports at the seats. My dad is very excited about the charging ports and kept pointing them out for me 😂.
After watching them load our luggage on the tour bus, we settled into our seats and headed to Jaffa, only minutes away from Tel Aviv.
The weather was gorgeous and I was surprised by the number of people I saw in the ocean in January. I saw surfers, kayaker, people paddling while standing, and others doing yoga on the beach. I didn't know that Tel Aviv/Jaffa was so pretty! The beach reminded me of Miami.
We exited the bus and spent about an hour walking through Jaffa. We saw Andromeda's Rock, St. Peter's Catholic Church where Peter had his vision from God as recorded in Acts 10, the Armenian Monastery where Napoleon took his wounded and plague stricken soldiers after the Siege of Jaffa, and the port where Jonah tried to escape from God when he refused to go to Nineveh.
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| our guide Henry said we could just pretend the rock with the flag on it was the one that held Andromeda 😂 |
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| St. Peter's Catholic Church - where Peter had the vision of the sheet from God telling him nothing God has made is unclean, allowing him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles |
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| there's a painting over the altar of St. Peter's Church that illustrates Peter's vision |
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| St. Nicholas Monastery - a thousand year old Armenian Monastery where Napoleon sent his wounded and sick (with the plague) soldiers after the Siege of Jaffa during his Egyptian campaign, |
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| somewhere around here (maybe?) is where Jonah sailed away while trying to run from God |
Jaffa's old prison is now the city's most exclusive hotel, and the remains of the Saraya Building that was blown up in 1948 still stands proudly as four pillars.
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| old prison now reinvented as a very fancy hotel |
We saw where the old city walls were, now marked by white stones in the ground and watched and listened to the ocean waves hitting the rocks below and Henry told us stories about Jaffa.
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| view of the monastery in the background. The white stones on the road? That's the outline showing us where the old city walls stood before the siege. |
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| by the sea - you can see where the old city walls were. Cars are just driving on it like it's no big deal |
We walked towards the center of town where the Christmas tree is and saw the Saraya building, of which there are only 4 pillars remaining after it was bombed in 1948. We all trooped back onto our bus and headed to Caesarea.
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| this is the official (and only) Christmas tree in Jaffa and Tel Aviv - they love Christmas, even though they're Jewish. There's a very very small Christian population in Jaffa, explaining the presence of the tree. My dad was very excited and wanted to take a picture with the tree. In January 😂 |
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| all that's left of the Saraya building - it was used as a city hall and community center |
The theater was excavated and 20 had been buried under 20 feet of soil. Only the seats at the top of the theater had been visible prior to excavation. The first row still has some original seats, but the rest has been restored and it's still being used today for concerts.
Deeper inside, we see a stone that has refers to Pontius Pilate, which is independent corroboration outside the Bible that he existed. The original stone is in the national museum, but a replica is here where it was found to be displayed. Apparently scholars were skeptical of his existence since there was nothing outside the texts of the Bible that mentioned Pontius Pilate, but this stone confirmed his existence and was a big deal.
Further in we see Herod the Great's Palace that was built on the water. We can see some pillars remaining from his personal quarters where courtyard and private pool was located. There are still the ruins of some mosaics by his pool. The view from here is amazing! It must be nice to be an evil evil man who only bowed down to the Roman emperor.
Not far from his palace we find the hippodrome where the chariot races were held. Some of the stands still exist and you can climb up and sit in them. This is what's cool about Caesarea - they let you climb and touch and explore. We could sit in the theater and in the hippodrome where rocks quarried thousands of years ago still make up the structure. It's amazing and humbling when you're surrounded by history as we're reminded of our insignificance.
From here we head to lunch. There was a gelato shop across the way we didn't have time for, but that's okay. I can buy some talenti when we go home 😁. We drive into Mt. Carmel where we have lunch in a restaurant run by the Druze. They are a small religious and ethnic community is very tight knit but active in public life in Israel. They make up about two percent of the population in Israel. According to Henry, they are known for their food. They have extensive meze (small dishes as appetizers or snacks), and while the flavors are similar to Jewish and Arab cooking, they cook and eat seasonally, so they were doing it before it was trendy and expensive.
Lunch was buffet style, and I've never seen so many salads before in my life. Salads are a big thing here! Also, there was the biggest bowl of hummus and tahini that I've ever seen and I was a happy girl with my giant pile of hummus with freshly baked pita bread. I've never been a fan of falafel, but the falafel the Druze made were amazing! I wish they tasted like this at home. My parents didn't love the rice, but my dad ate a lot of pita and hummus. I had no idea the man ate hummus! Has he been eating my hummus at home and I just wasn't aware of it? 🤔
After a big lunch, we trooped back onto our bus and headed to Capernaum. We've been to Capernaum before on our Holy Land cruise on NCL, but Henry is, I think, a better guide than the one we had before. The tour we took before in our two days in Israel was supposed to be Christianity focused...but I don't think it really was. Whereas this tour is not religious or tailored for pilgrims, Henry reads from the Bible a lot (he's Jewish) to give us context and provide a framework for what we're looking at.
In Capernaum, there are two major sites that are visited: the 4th century AD synagogue, and the home of Simon Peter's mother in law.
In Capernaum, there are two major sites that are visited: the 4th century AD synagogue, and the home of Simon Peter's mother in law.
The current synagogue, the white synagogue, was built in the 4th century. The roof is long gone, but the pillars still stand. Excavations reveal an older synagogue that would have been here at the time of Jesus, and that was built of local black basalt, not the white limestone of the 4th century synagogue. Because they didn't want to tear down the existing synagogue, only a corner has been excavated showing the black basalt of the earlier one that stood here. In Mark 1, when Jesus heals the man with unclean spirits at the synagogue, that would have taken place at the current location, but in the old building, not the one currently standing. Jesus would not have recognized the current limestone synagogue, He would have been inside a synagogue made of black stone.
Across the way you see a large octagonal church built by the Roman Catholic church. Beneath it is the home of Simon Peter's mother in law. We know this because excavations have found that the house's main room had been plastered from floor to ceiling in the mid first century, a rarity for houses from that time. There are etchings on the plaster walls dating from the first century that say Jesus is King in Greek among the approximately 160 inscriptions found on the plaster walls. It's said that a lot of inscriptions found also mentioned Peter. There are also remnants of votive lamps found in this specific room, which is an indicia of early worship along with hundreds of crosses drawn on the walls. The pottery found here don't contain what is expected from a domestic house but instead that of worship and fellowship. It's apparent that this room was used as a place of worship. It was improved where later there was a stone roof built for this room along with an arch before a better constructed church was built in the 5th century. Capernaum was and remained a small fishing village filled with laborers, farmers, and fishermen. And Matthew the tax collector - he was from Capernaum. The homes here are small and humble, built of local black basalt rock with roofs of wood (branches), mud, and straw.
The octogonal martyria church that was built here signifies that this was an important site. There are also mosaics here that date to the time of the crusades. It's while excavating these mosaics that the location of what could have been the world's first Christian church (a home church) was located. The catholic church is built above the site and its shape is to honor the byzantine octagonal church originally built here. In the church (and guides are not to "guide" inside. It's very quiet) there's a glass floor and looking down, it's over the main room that is believed to be the house of Simon Peter's mother in law. The one that Christ healed. And as that floor dates back to the first century, this would've been the floor Jesus stood on.
A minute or two stroll from the house and we reach the shore of the Sea of Galilee. I imagine it looks the same as it did two thousand years ago, and my mind is blown by the fact that I'm looking at the same view Jesus did. He looked up and saw the same sky, He waded and walked on the water I see before me. He crossed this sea many times, and he taught along its shores. I could be standing in the same spot He stood in when He was here! 😳
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But...were on the fifth floor. And there's only one elevator. And it's really small and slow as hell. Trying to get our luggage upstairs was a zoo. Everyone was scrambling and it was nuts. Henry finally told everyone to leave their luggage and head to their floors. Our luggage will take the elevator up to the 5th floor and we can grab it there. So we grabbed our underseat bags and trudged up 6 floors, because the lobby level was not the first floor. We should not have taken our underseat bags 😂. We needed to stop and rest on the third floor.
There's also only one key for our room. And it's literally a key. The last time we had a real key was in Germany, except that was fancy as hell and it was for a thousand year old castle. This...is not. I realize now that I stopped taking photos of our hotel rooms after the first night. Overall it was comfortable enough, but I would liken it to a motel that happened to have internal hallways.
I knew it was going to be pretty rough since I had read reviews ahead of time. There are slim pickings in Tiberias and the hotels are supposed to be much better going forward. I prepared my parents for this and told them that this was going to the worst of the hotels. Fortunately it was. Overall, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't dirty, we didn't get bedbugs, there were no fleas...it just wasn't fancy. And getting up to our room involved lots of huffing and puffing for us soft Americans 😂. The worst part of the room was the leaky shower door - the first night we didn't realize and the entire bathroom floor was wet. Once I figured out where the problem was, we showered very carefully and didn't flood the floor of the bathroom. At the end of the day it was a place to shower and sleep since we didn't arrive back until after 5 the two nights we stayed there. We were so tired from touring all day we could have slept anywhere at that point.
At 6:30 we headed into dinner. It's a buffet on the first floor with drinks included. There are a ton of meze - salads and dips and spreads. Soup, lots of meat, and assorted carbs. I wasn't hungry because I ate so much at lunch, but I thought the food was fine. My mom was pouting because she didn't like any of the food, but they had a ton of fruit and that made her happy. We sat with a nice Chinese couple from Sacramento. They're ice, but they're quiet, and they're actually English speakers though they're my parents' age. Rare to see! They do speak mandarin, but Cantonese seems to be their native dialect.
At 6:30 we headed into dinner. It's a buffet on the first floor with drinks included. There are a ton of meze - salads and dips and spreads. Soup, lots of meat, and assorted carbs. I wasn't hungry because I ate so much at lunch, but I thought the food was fine. My mom was pouting because she didn't like any of the food, but they had a ton of fruit and that made her happy. We sat with a nice Chinese couple from Sacramento. They're ice, but they're quiet, and they're actually English speakers though they're my parents' age. Rare to see! They do speak mandarin, but Cantonese seems to be their native dialect.
After eating we head back. I'm so tired at this point and we take turns showering in the crappy bath and just sleeping. My head is full from everything we've seen and I'm exhausted. The next day will start early as we head into the upper Galilee region for another full day.
