Travelling north along the Israeli coast

The first day of our tour of Israel was full and fun. We left our hotel in Tel Aviv and drove north along the coast to the port city built by Herod the Great: Ceasarea. It was here that Paul was tried before Festus and made his appeal to Caesar. Here’s mom and I standing in front of the remains of the summer palace built and used by Herod, and a residence of Pontius Pilate a few decades later. It had a great view of the Mediterranean.

From Caesarea we continued north to the site of the very ancient city of Meggido, occupied already 7,000 years ago. In the picture below you can see a high place, an altar for sacrifices used before the Israelites arrived in Canaan from Egypt. At the front you can see the steps used by the priest to climb up.

Another sight to see at Megiddo is an ancient shaft down through the bedrock, ordered by King Ahab to secure the city’s water supply. There are 185 steps down to the bottom.

While traveling to our next stop, we pulled off the road to see a first century tomb that was revealed when the road was built. It is very similar to the kind of tomb Joseph of Arimathea gave for the burial of Christ. It is the only first century tomb in Israel with the rolling stone still intact. This tomb, by the way, is nowhere near Jerusalem and so could not have been that of Jesus. Notice how small the entrance is, and so why the disciples had to bend down to look into it (Luke 24:12, John 20:5)

Next we traveled a bit further to Mount Carmel, where Elijah challenged the priests of Baal and God rewarded his prayer with fire to light the altar of twelve stones. This picture looks out over the plain of Mount Megiddo, where Deborah and Barak defeated the armies of Sisera, and where Saul was defeated by the Philistines. Mount in Hebrew is ‘har’, so this is Har Megiddo, or Armageddon, where many believe the last battle will take place.

We then went on to tour a part of the crusader city of Acre, the only city of the crusaders that remains intact. This courtyard is where prison scenes of the film ‘Midnight Express’ were filmed.
For all you budding Hebrew scholars out there, can you read this sign? Hint: though the letters are Hebrew, they actually spell out a name of Scottish descent.

The day’s tour ended at our hotel in the Galilean city of Tiberias, right on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, better known to many as the Sea of Galilee. Here is a shot from our hotel’s pool deck.