On our first full day, I took a tour to the Sea of Galilee to see spots that are famous in the New Testament. Our tour guide was Solomon Golan and there were two other guests on the tour. Our first stop was to Nazareth, where we visited the Church of the Annunciation. This is the spot where the angel Gabriel told Mary what she was going to give birth to Jesus. Unfortunately, the original church that was built there is long gone. You learn quickly in Israel that almost everything was destroyed by either the Romans, the Syrians, the Turks, or the Crusaders. However, there were still some remnants of the old church left.
After we left the church, we went to a little shop where I had some Turkish coffee (yea, caffeine!) and some date juice (never had that before). Our guide, Solomon, stopped at a "tabboun" and got some fresh pita bread. The bread was about the size of a pizza and covered with olive oil and spices. Since it was fresh from the oven, we had to wait to let it cool down, which was fine because the traffic out of Nazareth was very slow. This was also my first realization that there are plenty of areas in Israel where Jews and Arabs live with little to no conflict. Nazareth is an arab town and Solomon was on good terms with everyone there. In fact, most of the area that we drove around was populated with Arabs.
Our next stop was Tabgah, where Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes. There is a beautiful little church built there to commemorate the event.
Also in Tabgah is the Church of the Primacy of Peter which is where Jesus appeared to the Apostles after his resurrection. In the middle of the church is the rock where Jesus told Peter that he was the rock on which to build the church. There are pictures on the wall of various Popes that have come to kiss the rock. This was the first place that, to me, felt like a "holy" site. There was something ethereal about this location above and beyond the other spots that we had visited so far. The grounds around the church are lush, well kept and rather beautiful compared to the desert-like landscape just beyond the church.
Our next stop was Capernaum. It was the home of several of the apostles and has a synagogue dating back to the 4th century B.C.
Our next stop was lunch. We stopped at a resort town along the Galilee called Tiberias. There were kids swimming in the water. We had a fish called "St. Peter's Fish" which comes from the Sea of Galilee. I later found out that it is a variety of tilapia.
Our final stop before heading home was at the Yardenet Baptism Site. This was supposedly the location where John the Baptist baptized Jesus Christ. No one knows for sure exactly where the event took place, but they know how many days Jesus walked from a certain location and have estimated that this must have been the place. In any case, it's a beautiful location. People still come to be baptized all the time. No one was there to be baptized the day I was there, but I included a picture from the internet of what it looks like when people are there.
