Galilee

We were VERY glad to have booked a private guide and driver, when we awake in Haifa to find 38 tour coaches lined up on the quayside!  

Our guide and driver both days in Israel was Omri, another middle-aged man whose English was good, his having spent some time in Athens, GA, where his mother taught bio-chemistry for three years.  He was a non-religious Jew, whose theology and politics were both liberal enough for us to have a great deal of compatibility.  He was a native of Galilee, whose family had lived there pre-1948, so that also provided an interesting perspective on the current-day issues facing the region. We also found him to be extremely thoughtful about g’pa’s mobility limitations: the second day he completely revised his usual Jerusalem Old City walking tour route to make it easier!  But more of that in the next blog.

Haifa is a bustling modern metropolis in which a number of gems from the past nestle. One is the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Haifa, where we paid respects to Jim’s great uncle, John Reid Pascoe, a merchant seaman who lost his life after being torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Haifa during WW II.   

Another is the Ba’hai gardens, in the middle of the historical German quarter.  It was from the vantage point high above these gardens that this photo was taken.  The small boat in the background is our cruise ship!

We then journeyed to Nazareth, to the Church of the Annunciation.  Now, there are many things I will ponder over regarding our time in Israel, some profound, some shallow.  I will start with the shallow and work my way up!  This was the only place (before or since) that we had to pay to use the restroom; it was also the only place where the restrooms were nasty, nasty, nasty.

On a more positive note, the courtyard and interior walls were adorned with mosaics and artistic representations of the Virgin and/or Holy Mother and Child donated by and giving culturally specific interpretations of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Here is G’pa in front of the one from Scotland, and two personal favorites of mine.

There were also some beautiful Byzantine mosaics, and even some piles of stones labeled “The Ancient Village of Nazareth, but little to help the Christian pilgrim anxious to envision what Jesus’ earthly life there had been like.  I began to think that perhaps this was a good thing – don’t we sing a hymn that reminds us that the savior of the world is no longer bound by time to Palestine?

The first view of the Sea of Galilee, as we rounded a bend in the road restored my feeling that here we were encountering something close to what Jesus must have seen, albeit that the water level in the lake is dropping at an alarming yearly rate, since it is the main fresh water supply for the whole of  Israel.

The bank of the river Jordan was our second Galilean stop. It claimed to be “near the spot where Jesus was baptized by John”, but this had not deterred the take-over of Mammon and the opportunity to self-baptize, be re-baptized, be baptized for the first time, renew your baptism or purchase oil and bottled, murky, magic Jordan water to baptize anyone you chose back home.  Cynical you may say - you bet!

 We stopped for an excellent lunch in an authentic Lebanese restaurant where our driver and his family often dine.  We opted for the selected appetizers, planning to order an entrée later.  When the brought out 6 full plates of assorted salads, then 6 more, and yet another 6, followed by one large plate each of tabboule and fatoush, we knew even the Simpsons were beat.  The baba ganoush was the best I’ve ever eaten, by the way.  We left room for the obligatory Turkish (Lebanese?) coffee with accompanying fresh dates, which g’pa most enjoyed, as you can see.

 It was the “loaves and fishes” site next.  A pretty little church had been built there, with some nice mosaics, but nothing miraculous here.

We spent some time in Capernaum, probably my favorite stop today, because of the archeological remains of the ancient town, rather than simply some gargantuan Christian church, monastery, basilica or whatever had been erected over what was loosely believed to be the site where this or that happened in the life of Jesus.  Of course, I was not at all convinced that Peter’s house was what it claimed to be, but there was something more authentic about the virtually unchanged-since-bible-times vista over the Sea of Galilee, and the very simple church built over Peter’s house, than the grand houses of worship elsewhere.

The Mount of the Beatitudes was our next stop.  The church here was decorated with stained glass panels the Beatitudes, its octagonal shape representing the eight “O the bliss of..” statements of Jesus.  I am sorry that the photo below is a bit blurry, but hope you will be able to catch its simple beauty and truth.  The views of the Sea of Galilee from this building were glorious. There was a gift shop, of course, but it seemed less hurried and frantic here than it had been at the Jordan or in Nazareth.

We were on the road for ten hours today, returning to the shiptired but excited about our upcoming 10 hours in Jerusalem and at the Dead Sea.