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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. |