Trip to Israel, April 2007
This trip to Israel (our third, second for the kids) was the craziest of all. We went all over the country, from Tel Dan and Kiryat Shmona in the North to Eilat in the South, from Jaffo and Haifa in the West to Lake Kinneret and the Golan Heights in the East. We "patrolled" all the borders and went swimming (or at least wading) in all the four seas. We managed to put 2000 kilometers on the speedometer of our car in the country that is only 600 kilometers long. Now I am thinking how I can possibly fit all this into one trip report...
First, the wonder car that took us through it all. It is a Renault Kang(ar)oo. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.
In a car like this, you are not a mere tourist, you are an explorer. And thus we proceeded to explore...
We pretty much started in the North. From our base in Haifa, we travelled all across Northern Galilee, and also to Megiddo and Beit Shearim. Then we spent a day around Lake Kinneret: in Tveria, on the Golan Heights, in the hot springs of Hammat Gader, ..., and ended up in Jerusalem. Ask me what the three dots stand for -- no space to explain here.
Jerusalem is a fascinating city. It is like a human anthill. You can be following a street that turns into a staircase, leads up to a roof of a building, proceeds there for a while, gets back down... Other streets are completely enclosed in stone arches, so you cannot even see the sky, and as you walk there you are wondering: are there, at this moment, other people walking above my head, or below my feet?.. Thousands of years of civilization have left all these levels -- topographical, historical, religious, cultural -- that literally make your head spin. I am not pretending to give a comprehensive description of Jerusalem here; just a few impressions from our visit.
One common thread of this vacation was that a major portion of it was spent either underground or below the sea level:
- We went into the tunnels in Jerusalem and in Megiddo
- We explored the grottos of Rosh Ha-Nikra, Beit Shearim burial chambers, and the Bet Shemesh stalactite cave
- Lake Kinneret is 200 m below sea level
- Dead Sea, of course, is 400 m below sea level. Ein Gedi is right next to Dead Sea, but up -- I am not sure how high we climbed. Technically we might have reached sea level, although I doubt it...
- Even in Eilat, there is an underwater observatory -- and also an underwater restaurant
Noteworthy pursuits above sea level included:
- A pleasant afternoon in Jaffo
- A drive through Negev
- Looking for King's Solomon mines in Timna. No, we didn't find the diamonds (I think they were supposed to be copper mines, anyway). And so we became enriched only in spirit, having seen all these various wonders, which we now happily share with you.
