Tiberas and Haifa

From Tessa

Greetings, all! Now that we've told you about the first day of our 3 day road trip, I'll recap two days ago for you.


Previously, we left off telling you about staying at the Kibbutz. After leaving our room there, we struck off toward the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. The sea was beautiful, especially on a hot day in the desert. We ended up stopping first at Capernaum, which has both Jewish and Christian significance in reference to the Bible. There was an old church as well as an old Synagogue from the 1st century, both rich in religious history. It is rare for there to be both a Synagog and an ancient church next to each other. The history and architecture was just what we had come to Israel to explore, and we weren't disappointed!

Dad, Cassie, and I in front of the gate and sign

Ancient church of the 5th century CE. Had another modern church built on top of it, suspension style, in 1991 

Old Synagogue where it is rumored that Jesus preached at on Shabatt.

Excavated city

Main welcome-stone of the Synagogue

Beautiful columns with flowers and Star of David

The Sea of Galilee - we dipped our toes in a little bit

After visiting this fantastic sight, we were on the lookout for a good lunch spot. Since it was Friday afternoon, there weren't many places open because of Shabbot that evening. We found a sea side fish restaurant. Mom, Dad, and I ordered the local delicacy, St. Peter's fish. What we didn't realize was that it was a WHOLE fish! What we soon realized is that it was delicious. Here's a picture to illustrate:

Whole perch!

Dad and I with lunch

That was a wonderful surprise! After grabbing a few pictures on the water, we continued on in our journey.

The four of us on the Sea of Galilee

 We thought we could explore the town of Svat (or Sefat). Sefat is well known as one of the 4 holy cities, and as a major center of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). Unfortunately, Friday afternoon is not the best time to sight see in Israel, and we didn't get to what we had hoped to see. We had a nice drive through, however, and continued onto our next destination!

After Sefat, we drove to our final destination for the day, Haifa. This city is often likened to San Francisco, as it was built on the side of a mountain, Mount Carmel, and is close to a "bay", the Mediterranean sea. It was a very cool sight to see. We then proceeded to look for our hotel. As we searched, we noticed we were driving deeper and deeper into some pretty sketchy backstreets, and when we were thoroughly suspicious of the neighborhood, our hotel finally came into view. We were none too happy about that! Nonetheless, it being Shabbat eve, many place were closed ,so we knew our options were limited. We went inside the lock-protected front doors to take a look at our rooms - and they were beautiful! Not only that, they were clean, well appointed, and there was a lovely courtyard to sit in. There was also a rooftop view of the Mediterranean sea as well as the sprawling city of Haifa, and we learned again not to judge a book by its cover! ;)

View from the rooftop with the Mediterranean Sea in the background!

We decided to go to dinner. It was just before sundown, and Dad offered to go get the car, about 500ft around the corner,and drive it up to the door of the hotel for us. Due to one-way streets and construction, it was an hour and a half later that Dad finally arrived in front of our hotel! We spent that hour and a half worrying about him, since he had our Israel cell phone and we hadn't heard from him. We looked for him a few times, with no luck. We thought we saw him once after about 45 minutes of waiting, but the car just drove by, so we thought it must be someone else. Finally, Mom and Cassie and Ido, our hotel concierge, spotted him driving by. Mom yelled "MARC!", he heard, and pulled over.  We decided to forget the whole incident and have a lovely dinner. The restaurant was middle eastern, called Fattousch, and it was delicious. Our favorite part, though, was having our Marc back :)

Safe and sound at Fattousch

After several fireworks displays during dinner, and a satisfying meal including feeding a stray kitty, we easily found our way back to our hotel and called it a good day.