After a round of heavy breakfast we started our journey with a larger group of people in one of the big tourist buses after 8:20 am today. In the early morning, both I and Rohit had made more progress in reading our respective novels (Swami and White Tiger) and I had finished reading mine and was sort of in a somber mood. The world had lost a very powerful, talented and a very emotional personality of ‘Shreemant” Madhavrao Peshwa and his ‘sati’ wife Rama. I was very much touched by the author’s style of depicting all the scenes of the wars, the strategy planning meetings and the innocent love between Rama-Madhavrao.
Back to our trip… Today’s guide was really good – kind of an old man but was enjoying his job thoroughly and throughout the day educating lot of us with all the interesting stories from the holy bible that happened at these locations.
A little bit about Israel first. The whole of Israel has 7M (million) people; Jerusalem being the largest city hosting over 700K and Tel Aviv the 2nd with over 500K and Haifa the third with 300K. Everyday about 2M people come for work to Tel Aviv. We drove a very historic road: Via Marice has 5000 years of history. Back in the time, it used to be the only road connecting Egypt with Syria/Babylon. King Solomon ruled here in the valley of Sharon which had citrus groves in the past. Israel’s #1 industry is to cut and polish diamonds, #2 is agriculture + hitech economy. In the valley of Sea of Galilee, the land is very fertile and produces bananas, mangoes, olives, avocados, cotton, and vegetables. Also saw Israel’s power plant – from coal most of it. Lots of coal gets imported via ships from over the world and get moved into the power plant via conveyor belts. Israel is a fairly small country: 600km x100 km. There are lots of migratory birds (cormorants, storks, pelicans) that fly to and from South Africa. Our guide was explaining the ~5000 years back the area was covered with crocodile infested waters. Then only 120 years back under Turkish empire, the Jewish settlers got eucalyptus trees from Australia. They sucked the swamp water which help it drain completely from the area that now grows lemon groves and vegetables. Nobody can say looking at Israel of today that not until 200 years back it was nothing but sand dunes + desert. Lots of hard work + strong ambition of Israelis have paid off!
On the way to Nazareth (our 1st stop of today) we passed by the hills of Samaria (remember the phrase ‘good samaritan’ -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan ) and saw of bunch of minarets (indicating a Muslim village) around us. Square shaped towers with bells indicate a Christian village, those with pointed pencil shaped apex are minarets/Muslim inhabitants and the towers with none of these are the Synagogues for Jews. We also crossed valley of Jesara (blessed by god). There are 3 most holy places for Christians: Bethlehem where Jesus was born, Nazareth: where Jesus spent his childhood and finally the church of sepulchre in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified.
The day was very cloudy and it had started drizzling when we got out of the bus in Nazareth. Saw the main Church of Annunciation which was 2 storied. Lower level is what used to be St. Mary’s house, upper level being the actual Church with beautiful paintings, ornate stained glass work and mosaic on the floor overlooking the lower level where people have mass services.
Later visited the neighboring church of Joseph, which had Joseph’s carpentry workshop and this is the place where Jesus grew up and learnt from his father. The workshop gets worshipped and devout followers offer money on the old ruins even today.
The story of why Mary and Joseph move from Nazareth to Bethlehem – Angel Gabriel came in St. Mary’s dreams telling her that she will be the mother of the God. During this time King Herod was ruling and came to know about it and planned to destroy the couple before they give birth to the child. So to seek a safe shelter the couple fled to Bethlehem where Jesus was born by immaculate birth. Only after the king died, the couple and the baby moved back to Nazareth where Jesus was raised. When he came of age, he declared that he was the descendant of King David and that we would be the next messenger of God. The Jewish settlement around him did not approve of this at all and outcasted him and ordered him to get out of Nazareth. That initiated the great journey of Jesus from Nazareth down south towards the sea of Galilee.
Our bus hummed along through the super-fertile Jordan valley to the see of Galilee. On the way to Capernaum (St. Peter’s town), we also passed through little town of Migdal from where hailed Mary Magdalene. At Capernaum, we saw St. Peter’s house – actually his mother-in-law’s. He was very poor and she was a rich lady, so he stayed with his wife at her place. The site seems to be well preserved and they have constructed a church on it. On the side of this church was a synagogue where Jesus taught his followers. At Sea of Galilee, there is a famous tale of St. Peter's fish which we ate for lunch near a restaurant at Capernaum.
Following this site we went to visit Mount of Beattitudes, Tabgha (where Jesus performed the miracle of multiplication) and Yardenit, the baptismal site for Christians on the banks of Jordan River.
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