The Land of Living Stones

Over Greek Orthodox Easter my roommate and I took a holiday to the north country to see the spots where Jesus hung out 2000 years ago. The first day, Thursday, we took the public bus up to Tiberias, an old city with deep Jewish significance. For a couple of hours we wandered the small old city area and saw a few architectural things, a mosque predating 1948, the former city wall, a monastery. Then we walked along the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) promenade and got some of the tastiest fish I’ve had in a long while, a tourist meal called “St. Peter’s Fish”. I enjoyed the fish alot, especially how my roomie waved the head around.

We caught a bus to our ‘hostel’, a predominantly Jewish/Israeli frequented spot right on the sea called Karei Deshe. Actually we couldn’t figure out how to get there and we walked through a date palm farm and over some fences before finding the entrance. But the second we arrived, I realized why we paid so much for a room–it is a gorgeous hotel! We didn’t have a dorm room but instead we stayed in a suite with a beautiful bathroom, mini-fridge, and a sliding door deck out to a green lawn–a straight shot to the beach where we could see the waves breaking on shore all night. It was super relaxing and we immediately went out to stick our feet in. Unfortunately it was a bit chilly and there were some showers so we didn’t stay out long but we had some R&R at our outdoor table. Then after consuming our instant soup for dinner we went out in the dark to experience some spiritual elements of the passages about Jesus and the sea…like walking on the water, going out early to pray, feeding the 5000, etc.

Morning came and we tried to to catch the sunrise, except the clouds in the East were huge and playing cloud tetris! It just never ended. Then we had a great included breakfast at the hotel and then we started the hike to Tabgha (where Jesus fed 5000 and declared Peter the rock on which the Church would be built) and to Capernaum (where the Gospels record many of Jesus’ miracles and ministry.) First, I found an 8th century Ottoman fortress on the correct road out of the hotel and it was cool but in ruins (apparently not worth restoring and charging admission.) Then it was a bit farther on for the first church, where the rock that the five loaves and two fishes were put on. Even though the sign said no picnics, my roomie and I broke bread with peanut butter while dangling our feet over the Sea of Galilee. It was quite a special moment.

The next church was the Primacy of St. Peter, dedicated to how Peter was called to lead the Church, the body of Christ! It was a beautiful building with apparently another important rock as part of it. On the sidewalk leading around the coast of the Sea, we realized we wouldn’t be able to walk up the mountain to the Mount of Beatitudes church where Jesus’ most famous sermon was supposed to have occurred. Instead we just gazed from afar and kept walking with all our stuff. Eventually we came to Capernaum (Kfar Nahum) where the first century village is meant to have been. There are ruins of a synagogue and of a house called St. Peter’s Mother-in-law’s house, after the story where Jesus healed her of a high fever. It’s believed that this home became an early house church community. There is a big chapel built on top of the ruins on stilts sort of and it has a 360 degree view of the surroundings, including the gorgeous sea. The interior is modern with wood panels depicting Jesus’s miracles in Capernaum, and a glass floor section over top the excavated former village. You can walk down to the water here and there is a chapel outside.

We were very heavily burdened and sadly had to walk back all that way almost to our hotel to get to a bus stop where the bus would take us back to Tiberias. When we arrived there, tired and exhausted, we looked to see if there was a sherut running to Nazareth, since the Egged bus company does not run direct routes there from Tiberias. We asked a taxi driver who said it would cost 140 shekels for the ride with him, but he gave us an awesome tip that there was another bus company that ran routes frequently from the same station, the Nazarene bus company. In the end it worked out really well and we saved lots of money. Then we got to Nazareth and headed straight for the famous Basilica of the Annunciation where Mary found out she was to bear the Son of God. It is a strangely modern design with interesting features. There are beautiful art/mosaic works from countries around the world depicting Mary/baby Jesus and a statue of Mary backed by a fountain and surrounded by a labyrinth outside. Inside there’s a downstairs main chapel and an upstairs chapel and several altars. It’s pretty impressive, awing. The inside of the dome is beautiful too, and the stained glass.

There is a less spectacular church next door dedicated to Joseph’s role in the matter, also with an upstairs and downstairs, including interesting paintings of Jesus and Joseph. It definitely lives in the shadow of the prettier Basilica, which also stands atop ruins of ancient Nazareth. Soon we took our weary selves to the Fauzi Azar Inn, a real hostel in an old mansion hidden away within the Old City. It has Jewish Israeli guests, especially during holidays like Passover, and also many foreign volunteers/travelers, and perhaps Arab Israelis as well (I’m not sure.) But on the whole the Old City is mainly populated by Arab Israelis, Muslim and Christian. It reminds me a bit of Old City Bethlehem, only I haven’t spent much time wandering Bethlehem’s tiny streets and Old City residential areas. We found our beds in a 6 person dorm room but didn’t stop there. Our amazingly full day ended with a trip to the restaurant El-Rida which had a lot of charm and I got muhamar, a sort of bread/sauce-less pizza with sauteed onions, chicken and spices on top.

After sleeping in, we munched on some pitas and peanut butter for breakfast before setting out with a lovely volunteer from Fauzi for a cultural tour of the Old City. We stopped by some other old-style homes, and saw the wood carving and intricate architecture. Then we had a cup of awesome cinnamon and nut tea in an otherwise exclusively male coffee and backgammon club. Another highlight was the coffee shop where we saw how they roast and grind coffee beans with cardamom for Arabic coffee, and the famous spice shop which was once a city-wide flour mill. It was amazing.

To follow the tour we decided to continue up a path of several hundred steps up the hill to the top to a viewpoint of the city available from the Salesian School and Church of Jesus the Adolescent. After we huffed our way up there we got inside the school which apparently was out for the day. Snapping pictures from the balcony we noticed that the gate we entered from had been closed! We were definitely locked on the grounds of the school/church! There was a door open to the school which we ventured inside and saw a class in session (maybe remedial or something) but couldn’t interrupt. Searching onward, we found the cathedral which was locked from the outside. It was phenomenal inside! What a treasure! So pretty. Feeling uneasy we returned outside and saw a boy, who through my limited Arabic seemed to point us to a street that we could escape too. Anticlimactically we got through okay and came straight down all those steps. Thanks Salesians, for locking us in.

For lunch we decided on some fresh pita pizza from a real hole in the wall. Literally, I tell you. But the man told us “five minutes” which turned into a half hour of waiting for them to fix the oven. My, that was a delicious pizza! I was so pleased with it. Only 6 shekels, $1.50. We ate on the run so we could find our way to Nazareth Village, a Christian ministry that recreates some aspects of first-century life in the Jewish village of Nazareth. There is a cistern, a wine press, an olive oil press, a home, a synagogue, and a museum. We had a Messianic-Jewish guide who was intriguing but we were forced to travel en-masse around the mini-farm with two massive tour buses of tourists, making it not such a personal, pleasant experience. Still, I appreciated their work and I had half a mind to sign up to volunteer next year as a woman at the well.

Afterwards we headed back to the Old City where we ate at another staple restaurant, Tishreen which had an awesome interior, very Palestinian, and extremely generous salads. I had the Tishreen salad, which had parmesan cheese, nuts, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, romaine and a vinagrette. So tasty! Then we hiked over to Mary’s Well and to see Gabriel’s Church, the Greek Orthodox edition of the Annunciation, but it being Easter-eve, and late, wasn’t open. Back to the Inn we went, and there, met a warm fellowship of volunteers and young people in the area who were making sushi with smoked salmon, avocado, and cucumber. It was so fun to hang out with them…some were there for a while with the Mennonite Voluntary Service program REACH.

The next morning it was bright and early for the single direct bus going from Nazareth to Jerusalem. It was a quarter of an hour late which is unusual in my bus experience here and then the bus was almost entirely full–we had to sit in the very back five person row, behind a ginger soldier who kept staring back at my roomie, ‘giving an evil look’ she thought. I thought he liked her. When we arrived back in Bethlehem I discovered that one of our neighbors had passed away and tons of his family were around the street. We chilled for a few minutes before setting out in search of food. In the meantime, we were found by Dave and Barbie, volunteers with the Bible College Guesthouse. They invited us along to see the Herodion with them–Herod’s main fortress really close to Bethlehem. It’s  much easier to reach by car. When we arrived it was completely dead, and we got youth admission It was impressive, at least as much so as Masada, without a tram. But inside is the coolest bit, there is a series of cisterns/tunnels built by Herod to store water and expanded by Zealots who were hiding out a while there, and it’s fun to walk about inside them.

On the way home we stopped at Tantur, the Ecumenical Christian Institute outside the Bethlehem Checkpoint. It’s beautiful and I have meant to see it for sometime but never had the gumption or energy. I hope to go back someday maybe to study. What a weekend! We traveled so much and saw so much that it took several days to recover. I was pleased with the mass transit system, but it was only convenient as I arranged to see the Arab city of Nazareth on Saturday so we wouldn’t need the Israeli buses which just quit on the Shabbat.