Day 3

4/30/10 

On the bus headed to Ceasarea....

Woke up this morning at 6:15. Breakfast was very good. I had fruit and a cappuccino. Today is overcast and we have been driving in the bus for 30 minutes. We are headed to Caesarea, where Great King Herod had one of his fortresses.

.....Few hours later at the Caesar Hotel, 103 The Promenade, Tiberius, Israel, 14102

Today was very full. In Ceaseria we looked through Herod’s ruins of his palace, arena and theater. The most intriguing thing we saw was the theater. This is where Paul would have come when he plead his case before Felix in the book of Acts. There were stray cats everywhere in Israel.

After Caesarea we went to Mount Carmel. The Mount overlooks the valley of Armageddon. The whole valley is in bloom and is amazing to think that this beautiful, peaceful place will be where the final battle in the book of Revelation will happen.

Our next stop was the ruins of Megiddo, which is in Armageddon. Megiddo was fought over for thousands of years, and through the ruins archeologists have been able to show that 25 have cities have been built one on top of the other over the years. Megiddo is famous for jewelry that uses 2,000 year old Roman glass that was excavated. Of course I had to get a ring. It has an intricate woven design of silver that completely covers the top of my middle finger.

After Megiddo, we viewed more ruins at Bet She’an. The Philistines of Bet She’an displayed the bodies of King Saul and his sons on the city walls after the Philistines defeated the Israelites on Mt. Gilboa. The city was later taken by King David and became an important city under the reign of Solomon. The look of the city reminded me a lot of Pompeii.

Before we arrived at the Caesar Hotel we visited the Jordan River where it was traditionally believed the John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Researches now know that this isn’t the exact location the baptism would have happened, but the realistic location is in Jordan on the West Bank and isn’t open to tourists. Two people from our group were baptized by Pastor.

We are now in Hotel Caesar which is right off the Sea of Galilee. It is a much nicer hotel than the one in Tel Aviv. My hotel room overlooks the Sea. I am sitting in the busy lobby as I write this, music is playing overhead. So far I have heard Mama Mia by Abba, selections from Phantom of the Opera and ‘El Shaddia’ while I write and people watch. Tonight Sabbath starts at 7:30. Dinner will be pre-cooked and cold, the Orthodox’s wills use the special ‘Shabbat’ elevator where they do not have to push any buttons.

L.s.R