Nazareth and Tiberias

The first day of my trip started in Tel Aviv. Two of my three roommates and I, Joe and Felix, set out for Nazareth.

Me

That morning I managed to earn the nickname “Cockroach Dundee”. Over the past few weeks I had had a few run-ins with cockroaches. That morning I was surprised by a cockroach nesting in the back pack I wanted to use for the trip.

Joe

After picking up the rental car my roommate Joe, who rented the car, earned the nickname “Wrong-way-Joe”. Not even ten minutes out of Tel Aviv he missed the exit for the highway we wanted to take that ran north, highway 4. So Joe takes the next exit.

Felix

I look at the map and say “the highway we want is to the left of the highway we are on.” Joe, however, thinks otherwise. “The exit for the highway was on the right, so I’ll go right.” After 45 minutes of no highway Joe finally gives in and turns around to go back the way we came. As it turned out, had we gone left the on-ramp to highway 4 was not even 300 feet from where we turned right. Live and learn.

From there we made it to Nazareth without incident. Once there we had to figure out where to park. Nazareth is known for its horrendous traffic, so we ended up parking at a meter. (We could have parked in a lot for 10 shekels, or $3, or 3 dollars, but Joe went the wrong way). Unfortunately, the meter only gave us two hours time to see Nazareth. Undaunted, we set off to see the sites.

If anybody does not know the significance of Nazareth, then check out the wikipedia page about it here.

The Basilica of the Annunciation

There are many religious sites to see in Nazareth, but because we didn’t want to stay overnight in Nazareth, we decided not to see too many churches. Our first stop was the Basilica of the Annunciation. The basilica is the largest church in the Middle East and obviously very important to Christianity. It stands atop a 5th-century Byzantine church, which is build around the Grotto of the Annunciation. This is traditionally taken to be the spot where Mary’s house was located.

The entrance to the basilica building

Despite the history of this site, the basilica that stands there now was consecrated in 1969.

The court yard of the basilica.

I found it to be a rather strange building. It has a modern-art sort of feel to it, which I didn’t like. Add that to the fact that I have lived in Europe for the last five years and seen tons of old churches, I was not impressed by this. Being on such a meaningful historical site was much more interesting.

After the basilica we did not feel like spending our time walking through even more churches, so we headed to the Souq and then to the White Mosque.

Another view of the court yard of the basilica.

A souq is just an open air market. In Israel these open air markets are permanent fixtures, the small shops located in the buildings lining the narrow pedestrian areas through the hearts of the cities. Because it was a Monday there was not much activity, and to be honest, most of the stuff they sell there is junk.

The main sanctuary of the basilica.

So we headed to the mosque. I don’t know the significance of the mosque, we just wanted to see the inside of a mosque, as none of us ever have. They would have let us in, except they were about to have a burial, so we were respectfully turned away.

Since we had gone through our list of sights to see we decided to head to Tiberias. When we got back to the meter, there were still ten minutes left!

Tiberias is one of the four holy cities of Judaism and is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Alongside the tombs of Jewish sages are tacky resort-like hotels. The town has a long history, starting with its founding by the Romans under Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. After a revolt the Jews were exciled from Jerusalem, so Tiberias became the center of Jewish life.

The 5-th century Byzantine church.

The Crusaders also took the city in 1099 but lost it almost 200 years later, marking the downturn of the Crusader empire in the Holy Land, the Latin Kingdom. The Ottomans also played a role in the cities history, and the population of Tiberias has waxed and waned with the conflicts between Arabs and Jews. Today it is predominantly Jewish.

When we got to Tiberias the first thing we did was go to the lake, looking for a place to swim.

Me demonstrating how the cavemen opened their beer bottles.

The water looked kind of nasty so Felix and I let Joe swim by himself. After Joe was done we went and found our hostel and then turned around and headed back to the beach. This time with food in hand. This time Felix and I swam while Joe made a fire. We then dined on hard boiled eggs (we brought them with us), apples, pita, humus, and peanut butter. And I showed the boys how cavemen opened their beer bottles many thousands of years ago, before the advent of the bottle opener or the lighter. We stayed there on the rocky beach and enjoyed our fire for a few hours after it got dark. The wind and the feral cats finally drove us to leave at 7pm (it gets dark at like 4:30 here).

Back at the hostel Felix and I headed over to the adjacent hotel (which was somehow a part of the hostel) and used the internet. We ended up sitting and talking to the guy working the front desk, an Arab Israeli named Amir. It was pretty interesting and nice to get a view of Israel from someone who is not a Jew and not religious. I know plenty of non-religious Jews, but I don’t know many non-Jews here. We talked a little about politics and religion, and he helped clear up some misconceptions about the relations between Jews and Arabs here. We were however interrupted during our conversation. A Jewish family lived in the house next to the hotel, and at about 9:30 the woman of the house wandered into the lobby and asked Amir if he could come turn out the lights for them. With the setting of the sun that evening, the last day of Sukkot, a Jewish holiday, began. During Jewish holidays the Jews are not allowed to operate electronic devices. This means they get their Muslim or Christian friends to come and turn on and off their lights. Judaism is a very legalistic religion, but to me such a practice seems like they are following the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Oh well, we got some crazy stuff in Christianity as well.

At about 10pm we turned in for the night, and ended our first day of travels through Israel.