Life in a Letter: Nazareth, Tiberias, and The Sea of Galilee

So this morning we woke early, took breakfast in the hotel and set off for our road trip to Nazareth and The Sea of Galilee. The GPS was set for Nazareth and off we went. The scenery through the mountains North of Haifa was beautiful, and the sun was shining, what more could you want. We drove through lots of places we couldn't pronounce and eventually arrived in Nazareth, initially this was great, until GPS said 2nd exit off roundabout and what she actually meant was first, so round in a big block we went, back on track again, we arrived in the centre of Nazareth. Now when I say crazy, I'm talking mental, Narareth appears to be very Arabic and as such everyone drives like an Arab, oh my god I was very scared, U-turns, reversing without indication of any kind, traffic lights that didn't work, and everyone of Nazareth's inhabitants was on the road, these guys were clackers. I have never been to glad to leave somewhere, we headed to Mount Precipice, and the drive up was amazing, especially when the two cars heading down the way were using both sides of the road, we call it road kill when you hit an animal, here I think its tourists.

Sitting on top of Mount Precipice where Jesus held The Sermon on The Mount

The views over Nazareth and the surrounding area was beautiful, although Nazareth is a very busy city it was a really big wow to think that we were here where Jesus has been. I love history and religious history is equally fascinating to me. There were other things I would have loved to have seen in Nazareth but those crazy drivers freaked me out too much, so we reset GPS for Tiberias and off we went, once more she got us lost, and kept asking us to U-turn, we eventually pulled over, reset her buttons and off we went, hooray no U-turns and a very long road through the towns and villages.

Our first sights of The Sea of Galilee was from the top of the Mountains climbing down, in the far distance the snow covered mountains hung like fluffy clouds, framing the view, the heat was wonderful, the sun was out especially for out visit. I have been told that Israelis most important news update is not the dollar - shekel exchange or the Tel Aviv Stock exchange index, but rather the water level in The Sea of Galilee, apparently it reflects the national spirit, its is the Israel's largest fresh water reservoir, and it's also the country's largest and most import source and reservoir of drinking water. The Jordan River feeds into The Sea, it is 21km long and 12km wide, and at its deepest is between 140-200ft. It is the lowest freshwater lake on earth at 210m below sea level. Today Yam Kinneret, as Israelis know it, is carefully regulated by the government, the Degania dam was built in 1932 to control the water level, after a good winter the rainfalls fill the Sea of Galilee to 1m higher than in the time of Christ.

We stopped to take photos on the way down, then headed to the shoreline, wow, what a beautiful place Tiberias is, and again because it was Shabbat it was quiet, the shops were closed but the restaurants on the promenade were open, and very lively. I had a little cardigan on which was very soon put into a bag, but the locals were walking around with jumpers and boots on, we are the crazy tourists. The walk along the prom lead us to a restaurant where we decided to eat, I took a St. Peters fish, its other name is Musht and it resembles a comb with its bones, My Beloved settled on a mixed grill.

So having finished lunch we decided to find the Hot Springs of Tiberias, you would think this would be easy, and you would be wrong, we have noticed that things are not well signposted in Israel, if they are signposted it is generally in Hebrew and you end up like we did, traveling the same piece of road at least twenty times before you realize, you have been passing your destination without realizing. So we found the springs but because of the time it took us we were not long from closing so we have decided we will come back again, I think the Little Princes are going to love Tiberias we found so many things they will enjoy, but the most amazing thing we found for them is a park. The equipment which is outdoors but with Bedouin type tent shades over it was the coolest I have ever seen, it was like a climbers heaven and big enough for adult too. Across the road was a water park, and of course the shoreline, yep they will love Tiberias. We said goodbye to The beautiful Sea of Galilee and set GPS for home, just about an hour and a half later we were back to The Crowne Plaza, after the obligatory pitstops that is...

We were both very tired not just from our road trip, but obviously from our late night Friday, so we chatted with The Little Princes on Facetime, then laughed ourselves to sleep with Mrs Brown's boys, the one with the LSD, I'm smiling just thinking about it.

So our day finished with two very happy people, having had our first proper road trip in Israel we went to bed tired, happy and with a touch of sun, the freckles are gonna be bursting forth tomorrow.