haGalil:
The Galilee

Israel has far more for visitors than just Jerusalem. Point north from the well-trodden paths of the Holy City, through the amazing landscapes of the Jordan Valley, and you will be richly rewarded. A drive of only two hours from Jerusalem's Ben Gurion Airport brings visitors to Tiberias.

Founded in the first century A.D. by Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, it was named for the Roman Emperor Tiberius and is a blend of the religious and the secular. Tiberius lies 690 feet below sea level on the shores of the Sea of Galilee - which is not really a sea, but a 15-mile-long body of water also known as Lake Kinneret.
Tiberias, home to the second-largest spa in the Roman Empire, has a modern hot springs facility.

Ya'acov Dovev, a Galilee tourism official: "People today want an understanding of how things happened. Galilee appeals because things here are basically unchanged. Stick a finger into the ground, and you find history."

The Galilee Experience: A variety of activities, including overnight stays on a kibbutz, rafting on the River Jordan, bicycling the 40 miles around the Sea of Galilee -- or, to get a glimpse of life in olden times, donning Biblical garb, grinding grain, pressing olive oil and riding donkeys at Kfar Kedem.

A good place to start is a theater on the Tiberian docks where the producers of a multimedia show, "The Galilee Experience," use 2,100 slides and 21 projectors to illustrate the 4,000-year history of the area. After leaving the theater, travelers can board a replica of a first-century wooden boat that was dug out of the shoreline mud in 1986. The vessels take groups on one-hour trips on the Sea of Galilee, past Tabgha, Capernaum. Not far away is the Mount of the Beatitudes, the Site of the Sermon on the Mount.

A Byzantine-style Church at Taghb incorporates part of an old mosaic floor that dates back many centuries. The cycle of construction, destruction, and reconstruction of buildings, and entire cities, was common in the Holy Land over the centuries. This layer effect is illustrated at the Bet She'an excavations, some 20 miles south of Tiberias. Lying on the old road between Egypt and Mesopotamia, Bet She'an is one of the oldest towns in the world. Excavations there have exposed 18 separate occupation levels, indicating the likelihood that each successive conqueror destroyed the existing town and built a new one on top of the ruins.

Visitors looking for a change of pace can saddle up at Vered Hagalil Guest Farm, a dude ranch that specializes in sightseeing by horseback.