The Sea of Galillee and the three churches

Day 3 

I am now running a day behind as we have struggled with the wifi provision in the hotels. The hotels were billed as 4 star and they are very nice on the whole.  Here on the Dead Sea there is definitely a shift in style. We are further south and the food is much spicier. But back to the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galillee from our hotel

The shore of the Sea of Galillee

On the coach we hear the history of the country in modern times so that we could appreciate the issues concerning Gaza, The Golan Heights and The West Bank.

We visited three churches today.  The churches are all fairly modern, built after 1900, but replace older shrines at places of Christian significance.  We visited the Church of the Beatitudes, on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee, where the Sermon on the Mount took place.  In pictures, Jesus is usually represented standing on a rock or at the top of a hill, but it is more likely that he stood at the bottom of a natural amphitheatre on the hillside which would amplify his voice.  

The Church of the Beatitudes

The Beatitudes written on windows round the dome

The landscape of the hillside

The Church of the Multiplication was at the bottom of the hill and this is where Jesus blessed the 5 loaves and 2 fishes to feed the multitude.  You can see the rock where the blessing took place and there is an ornamental pool with fish to symbolise the miracle.

The rock under the altar of the Church of Multiplication

 The last church was in the town of Capernaum, may have spelt that wrongly, where Jesus spent much of his adult life with the disciples. It is on the shores of the Sea of Galillee  .  Here Jesus healed Peter's mother in law and the centurion and called the disciples to be fishers of men.  I had thought that maybe these sites were just passed down in folklore but there is quite a lot of historical and archeological evidence. 

The Roman ruins of the town

The ruins of Peter's house below the Church of St Peter

Where Jesus called the disciples at the Sea of Galillee

But apart from all this history, today was great fun.  Believe it or not, at 8.15am we were on an old fashioned boat, sailing across the Sea of Galilee, singing the national anthem as they hoisted the Union Jack and dancing to Hava Naguila.  Later on the captain showed us how the fisherman in Biblical times cast their nets.  Sadly no fish were caught.  At lunchtime we paddled in the the sea and Lynn and I tried to get into the mood by putting on Monty Python knotted handkerchief and rolling up our trousers. 

"So I said to the fishmonger, don't give me any of those tasteless St Peter's fish I had in the restaurant last night"

Hoisting the flags to the national anthems

Saluting the flag

Hava Naguila dancing

Demonstration of Biblical fishing techniques

A long ride on to the West Bank and through a checkpoint into Jericho which is an independent Palestinian town.  Soon the Dead Sea is insight.  It is deep turquoise and more like an extremely long lake.  Actually at one point it is almost split into two across its width where the land has been exposed due to water levels dropping.  This is for two reasons, firstly natural evaporation especially because the Dead Sea is 35% salt content, and secondly because many factories extract minerals to make Dead Sea skin products.  There are of course no fish in the sea but micro organisms have been found in the water which have great healing properties for skin complaints and also asthma when inhaled.  There is a lot of health tourism now and several hotels have been built on the beachfront.  There isn't much else but the beaches are nice and there are handrails into the sea.  It is the most amazing experience.  You float really easily but it is very hard to swim as your feet float to the surface and you feel as if your face is going into the water.  Now you don't want to get the water into your eyes or mouth as it is both very painful and disgusting. You are recommended to take a bottle of water with you to wash sea water out of your eyes. There is also a sea water pool in the hotel spa which is equally painful.  

Practising flotation technique in hotel sea water pool

Lovely dinner outside under the moon and to bed.  Why are we so tired?