H̱of HaDeqel

We drove out of Jerusalem for the final time on Day 11, headed for the northern coast city of Acre, one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on Earth. It sits on the coast of the Mediterranean, across the bay from Haifa, and our reason for being there was to visit the citadel and the old city. The city saw a ton of action during the Crusades, and the citadel, remarkably restored, gives you a feel for that 13th century action.

We strolled through both the old and new markets, buzzing with shops and people and activity.

Turning a corner and walking through a stone gate, the Mediterranean spread out in front of our restaurant for lunch, breezy and blue and busy with boats, a vast difference from the Dead Sea.

After lunch, to paraphrase Robbie Robertson, we pulled into Nazareth - seeing a Merry Xmas sign. A beautiful 1960’s era church sits over the apparent site of Mary’s annunciation. The town itself – busy with 80,000 people - is considered the Arab capital of Israel; our guide commented that when Nathaniel, in the bible ask, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”, he clearly was talking about parking. But the baklava that we ate there was darn good too.

Our spot for the next two nights is an old stone Scottish hospital in the town of Tiberias, now a hotel owned by the Church of Scotland. It overlooks the freshwater Sea of Galilee (which is really a lake) and, across the lake, we have a view of the Golan Heights, which we’ll visit tomorrow.

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