Mace Trip to Israel 2017

Upon arrival in Toronto yesterday about 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), we had a mighty disappointment to learn that our flight to Columbus was "cancelled" for lack of a crew.  Because of my job and its travel requirements, I know this is sometimes an unexpected occurrence so just need to buck up and get it figured out.  Tour leaders Aimee and Dave Walton jumped into the lurch, got it all sorted out for the group, and the mood visibly lightened when Aimee said while passing out the tickets (paraphrasing) to "Be thankful as there are a lot of people in the world who don't have a bed to sleep in tonight".  She is just soft as a comfortable shoe and I mean that in the most complimentary way. By bits and pieces we straggled into a nearby Radisson for an overnight.  Most of us elected to keep our luggage at the airport so as to not have to recheck it Friday morning (which it is as of this writing), so that confined me to using one of the complimentary razors there.  These al...

Shortly after 7 a.m. our bus rolled from the hotel toward the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, bound for the Dome on the Rock.  This is one of the holiest Islamic shrines in the world, initially completed in 691 AD and built on the site of the Roman temple of Jupiter Capitolinus , which had in turn been built on the site of the Second Jewish Temple which was destroyed during the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  The Dome of the Rock is in its core one of the oldest works of Islamic architecture.  The rock also bears great significance for Jews as the site of Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son. The site's great significance for Muslims derives from traditions connecting it to the creation of the world and to the belief that the Prophet Muhammad's "Night Journey" to heaven started from the rock at the center of the structure.  From here, Muhammad climbed a ladder to heaven and conferred with Jesus, Moses, and Eli...

Today (Tuesday) had a leisurely start at 8:00. . . .that Itai is a taskmaster!  We left the hotel and headed straight for Holy City, with our driver, Anwar, letting us out at the Garden of Gethsemane.   While I'm sure it is much shrunken in size from Jesus days, there are at least two trees there that date back to his time.  These olive trees are amazing in that they hollow themselves out as they age, with the shoots on the outside extending the tree over time.  And, of course, we know that this is where the disciples fell asleep while Jesus prayed and was eventually arrested Of course there's a church at the Garden of Gethsemane - the Church of All Nations (the Basilica of the Agony).  It is built over the rock on which Jesus is believed to have prayed in agony the night before he was crucified.  While it was built intentionally very stark inside (hence its name), we stayed a few minutes there and gathered our thoughts for the day ahead. From t...

The morning started with a beautiful sunrise over the Dead Sea viewable readily viewable from our hotel room, and off we went for the day.  Itai told us that the area we were leaving was actually adjacent to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Who knew we'd spent the night so close to the most wicked place on earth in biblical times? We headed north along the Dead Sea, retracing our steps from the prior day, and back past Masada.  In the brilliant sunlight, you can see the Snake Path - the  winding trail leading from the bottom to the top.  Some members of our group actually hiked up this pathway successfully - apparently earlier in the day yesterday at least 4 people broke various limbs trying to do the same thing, so fortunately none of group befell the same outcome.  I've included this picture, though, to show what that pathway (the Snake's Trail) was like. The Dead Sea was even more grand in the early sunlight than in the fading light of yesterday's late a...

Yes, that is what the Dead Sea is . . . . deader than a doornail.  And that is where we ended up our day at a beautiful hotel right on its shores.   But first, how'd we get here after waking up for our last morning in Tiberias. A 90-minute drive from there to Jericho happened first, with our first stop on that drive being at Yardenit on the Jordan River where the faithful gather to be baptized.   We got to this particular spot (I'm guessing there are others) at 8:00 a.m. just as the doors opened, and the crowds were already starting to swell.  The Jordan River supplies the Sea of Galilee on its north end where all the good fishing is, and empties from it at its south end on its trek toward the Dead Sea.  At this place are apparently regular baptisms, and thankfully no signage that said "John the Baptist was here!", but they were selling bottles of water clearly marked "from the Jordan River" as a substitute. And, apparently you can line up ...

If I said we only did three sites today, you'd think we had it easy.  Yet, we were delighted to trudge into the hotel at 4:50 p.m. and promptly dive into bed for a nap before dinner.  This tourism stuff is darned exhausting! We started the day promptly at 8:00 a.m. with a drive south, much of which was along the border with Jordan with line of sight to Syria even further in the distance.  Our guide, Itai, gave us the history of the relationship with Jordan beginning with its roots as a gift from England to the Hussein family for fighting with them against the Turks.  And I thought Cheryl was extravagant (occasionally)! Our guide, Itai, explaining the layout of Bet She'an National Par We eventually arrived at the Bet She'an National Park which houses the spectacular ruins of the glory that was the Roman and Byzantine city of Bet She'an. Around 1100 BC, Canaanite Beit She'an was conquered by the Philistines, the enemies of the Jews for centuries until K...