The next morning we awoke to see where we had landed.
Our accommodations looked like Bedrock City, from the Flintstones. We were in fact in Wadi Rum, where a number of movies have been filmed, including Lawrence of Arabia and The Martian.
It was time for a change of scenery.
We headed east, back through the Wilderness of Judea, where we saw lots more sheep and shepherds.
Another full day of unraveling the secrets of Jerusalem.
We started at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.
Another day to explore Jerusalem found us at another gate of the Old City, Herod’s Gate.
It was early and Herod’s Gate was already a busy place.
The Psalms of Ascent in the book of Psalms illustrate the anticipation of going up to Jerusalem to experience the city chosen by God for His temple.
We began the day overlooking the city from the Mount of Olives. The Dome of the Rock sits on the site where the Jewish Temple is believed to have been located.
Amazing history defines the sites we saw along the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.
We started at the most visited site in Israel outside of Jerusalem.
The Jordan River drains the Sea of Galilee and takes it to the Dead Sea, at least geographically speaking. Today the Jordan is but a trickle and the Dead Sea is drying up. On this day we headed south, leaving Galilee behind.
The Jordan River Valley is green in March, with intensive agriculture under the white, water-conserving canopy.
The Sea of Galilee was the center of Jesus’ ministry, and it has a great deal of meaning for the people in our group. We spent a whole day traversing its shore.
From our new temporary home at Kibbutz Ginosar, our first daylong foray was east and then north, into the Golan Heights.
I am always cheered by seeing the colorful Orthodox church at Capernaum with its bright red roofs.
Our planned trip to Israel and Jordan was scheduled for March 2020. But that was when COVID arrived, urgently elbowing its way to the front of the line on every schedule. At first I thought we might make it in August, or the following November, or May. Nope, COVID was not going to allow it.
FINALLY, after 4 postponements, we made it to Israel in March of 2022. (more…)
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