Galilee Day One--March 15th

Beautiful Galilee

Soooooooo Galilee!! Where to start? Galilee is so so beautiful. In some ways it reminds me of Hawaii. Everywhere you look you can see high green cliffs and the water. Did you know that the Sea of Galilee is actually a fresh water lake? I didn't know that. But when I learned it I vaguely remembered learning it in geography a long time ago or something. But now I know.

In true Jerusalem Center fashion on the way to Galilee we hit as many sites as we possibly could. Here are the adventures we had on the way to Galilee.

Our first stop was Caesarea. Caesarea is a ship port that Herod built in order to bring people and prosperity to that part of his ruling territory. Although I think he mostly did it to get favor from Caesar (hence the name). Caesarea is a ship port for ships coming in from the Mediterranean Sea. Its quite an impressive structure, back in those days they knew how to pour cement into water and have it set even when wet. We don't have that techology now, it has been lost. We saw some cool Roman culture things there, not to mention it was really pretty and right off the sea.

The Roman theater at Caesarea

This was the horse chariot racing track at Caesarea. Hence the picture.

Sandwiched between two tall people at Caesarea

We also stopped for about 15 minutes to see what an aqueduct looked like back in the time of the Romans.

Roman aqueduct. I believe that these arches would have been under water back then. We've found that Israel is a great place to tell secrets because of all of the arches you can find here!

After Caesarea we went to Nazareth to see the Basilica of the Annunciation, the Church of the Annunciation (which is the Greek Orthodox claim in the area), and the Church of St. Joseph. The Basilica of the Annunciation was really pretty. My teacher didn't like it but I really enjoyed it compared to some of the churches you find in Jerusalem. It was really big and had light colored stained glass windows. My favorite part was all of the mosaics and paintings...this church has a depiction of Mary from over one hundred countries. I really liked seeing the different nationalities of Mary. They were very pretty.

All the pictures of the different depictions of Mary in the courtyard of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth

The United States' depiction of Mary. Which I can't decide if I like or not.

The Church of the Annunciation was a small church that was also really pretty...we just walked in and looked at the shrine of Mary at the bottom of some steps. There was a stream of water running through the church where you could drink the "holy" water. If women drink it they are supposed to become pregnant. So I may or may not have had a drink...I guess we'll see!

I really liked the Church of St. Joseph. As you could probably guess it focused on Joseph and his mission in Christ's life. We went to the basement of the church and discussed how his personality and character must have been like. I really admire Joseph. I remember a long time ago after seeing The Nativity Story I remember thinking that I wanted to marry someone like Joseph. And I still do.

Sometime during this day (I really don't remember the order) we also went to Megiddo. This was an ancient city that overlooked the Jezreel Valley which is the place where everything before the second coming is going to go down. We saw stables where the people kept their horses as well as religious sites such as churches.

Jezreel Valley! Look for it in your scriptures

"Horse Stables" at Megiddo

After a long day of driving and all of these activities we came to the Ein Gev Kibbutz where we are staying for our whole time here. We got settled in and had sinner and spent the evening around the shors of the Galilee, followed by going to bed very early; we were all exhausted. It was a wonderful day and a wonderful night.