The Galilee and the Golan Heights

Today we set off north along the west side of the Galilee. We stopped for a few minutes at the Mount of the Beatitudes. This is hill where many believe Christ gave the sermon on the mount, although I don't honestly think anyone can know this for certain. It's a beautiful location overlooking the lake, and includes a lovely little chapel and gardens.




Then we headed north into the Golan Heights, quite near the border with Lebanon, to the Tel Dan Nature Reserve. The Dan River is the largest and the most important of the three sources of the Jordan River. The reserve contins many of the springs that feed the Dan River, as well as the remains of the ancient Canaanite city of Laish, which was captured by the tribe of Dan during the period of the Judges.






Finally, we headed south into the central Golan Heights to the Gamla Nature Reserve, which we were unable to find yesterday (one of the reception guys at our hotel explained how to find it; otherwise we never would have, as the entrance is a bit hidden on a back road). As we were traveling south along the western border with Syria at this point, we saw a lot of UN vehicles along the way, as well as many signs warning of land mines in nearby fields.

During the winter, the national parks in Israel close at 4:00 p.m., and allow the last entry at 3:00 p.m., so we unfortunately didn't have as much time here as we would have liked (we arrived right at 3:00). Gamla is located on a cliff ridge, overlooking steep ravines and, if you look carefully, the Sea of Galilee in the distance.

Apparently, dozens of pairs of huge griffon vultures nest in these ravines and can often be observed flying about below the observation point on the cliff top; however, we did not see any during our visit. It was terribly windy while we were there, so I'm not certain if even a very powerful bird would have wanted to fly then.


Remains of the ancient cit of Gamla, a propserous Jewish town during the Second Temple period, are also in the reserve.


The Gamla waterfall, Israel's highest, is also located here. we tried to hike to the waterfall, and were within site of the bridge over it, but had to turn back so as to make it out of the park before it closed.
Sunset over the Galilee.

Tiberias and the Galilee

We're staying in Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (or Lake Kinneret, as it's called by the locals), for a few days. It's a bit of a dreary tourist town, but a convenient base for exploring the region.

We spent most of the day driving around the lake. It's much smaller than I imagined, and quite easy to see one side from the other. It probably would have only taken a couple of hours to drive completely around it, but we stopped at several areas of interest along the way.

We visited the Kibbutz Ginnosar to check out the Sea of Galilee boat, a 2,000-year-old boat discovered in 1986 on the north-west shore of the lake when the waters receded because of a drought. A team of archaeologists worked night and day to excavate and move the boat before the waters covered it again, and then spent over a decade restoring it. It went on display in 1999.

I knew I'd heard about this boat years earlier, and realized why as we were watching a short film about the discovery. One of the two lead archaeologists who worked on the project, Shelley Wachsmann, was my professor at Texas A&M. I took a class called Archaeology in the Land of the Bible from him in the summer of 1998 - a fascinating class. He worked for Israel's Department of Antiquities and Museums for 24 years before joining A&M, so he had all sorts of interesting tidbits to share, including the inside information about restoration of the boat.


Twelve different types of wood have been identified as comprising this boat.

We both thought it was really neat to see a reference to our university half way around the world.

After viewing the boat, we drove around for a bit, stopping at various lookout points.


We drove back and forth on one highway, trying to find the Gamla Nature Reserve, but never were able to. The directions I had were incorrect and my map was unclear - very frustrating. We'll try again tomorrow.