Safed (Tzfat)

Safed, spelled at least three ways (look for future post on "Getting Lost in Israel"), is both an artists' colony and one of the four Holy Jewish cities in Israel.  It is the main home of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), of which Madonna is a famous adherent.  It's nestled in the hills of upper Galilee, kind of the Tuscany of Israel.  We went there to see the Old City, which has the remnants of a 12th century Crusaders' citadel, but also a thriving local art scene.  The shops line a long cobble-stoned alley (see photo top) that has any number of feral cats that wander about and no one seems to mind.  Benjamin was drawn into a shop (photo bottom) run by a Orthodox man originally from Montreal.   

Tiberias

Here I am on our hotel balcony in Tiberias, overlooking the Sea of Galilee.  The "sea" is actually a large freshwater lake, 13 miles long and 7 miles wide.  It supplies most of the fresh water for Israel.  It is also a big stopping point for Americans doing tours of the "Cradle of Christianity", as the Galilee area is where Jesus spent a lot of time. Ironically, only 1.5% of the Israeli population is now Christian, according to my Fodor's guide. On the Jewish side, Tiberias is considered one of Judaism's four holy cities, being the home of the Jewish Talmud (Jewish oral law).  The great Jewish philosopher Maoimonides is also buried here, though he never lived here. His remains were transported from Egypt.  Tiberias was established 2,000 years ago by Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great.  Herod Antipas, like his father, knew where his bread was buttered, and named the town after the ruling Roman emperor of the time, Tiberius.  My Fodor's guide describes this city of 40,000 as having "little beauty and less charm", and I have to agree that most streets look dirty and neglected.  On the other hand, it does have row upon row of row of falafel stands, and yes, the falafel is delicious. 

Latrun Armored Corps Museum

Benjamin specially requested a visit to the Latrun Armored Corps Museum, not too far from Jerusalem.  Latrun was the site of a Crusader castle in the 12th Century.  Fast forward eight centuries, and the castle is gone and  the British have erected their own fortress in Latrun.  When they leave in 1948, Jordanian soldiers take over the fortress, which is really more of a fortified police station.  The Israelis attempt to capture the fortress multiple times and finally succeed in 1967.  The building (pockmarked with bullet holes) still stands.  It is now a memorial to the 142 Israeli soldiers who died trying to take the fortress.  Its grounds, set on a lovely hilltop, are now filled with armored tanks the Israelis have used over the years, in the wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973.  Here Steven and Samuel and Benjamin are looking at protoypes for modern IDF tanks.   

Floating in the Dead Sea

To float in the Dead Sea, it's best to wear sturdy flip flops.  Wade in slowly, because the rocks are crusted with salt.  Then squat and lean back into water that is 32% salt.  Your buoyancy is guaranteed.  And last, but not least, no splashing allowed.  

Dinner at The Culinary Workshop

Here's a picture of Jessica and I outside the Culinary Workshop.  It's not a cooking school, as the name might imply, but a  very good restaurant.  And it's one of the few restaurants open on Friday night.  Just about everything shuts down for Shabbat in this very religious city.   But this restaurant was open down the street from our hotel, so that made it easy.  We joined Jessica and Ross for dinner and had to sit at the bar because table reservations were overbooked!  Jessica and Ross shared with us their experience of living in Jerusalem for the past year.  And while they wouldn't have missed the experience, they are also ready to come back to the U.S.   

McDonalds in Jerusalem

Okay, so it's McDonald's.  But it's McDonald's in Jerusalem.  Look at all that Hebrew on the Happy Meal box!  And they had burgers with names like the "Miami Burger" and the "New York Burger".  The plethora of burgers named after American states and cities was just too confusing for Steven and Samuel, so they just had Happy Meals. Everyone knows what that is. One thing it was NOT was kosher.  Yes, you could have your cheese with your burger.  But we did see a sign for a kosher McDonald's.  The familiar red arches were blue.  I plan to stick to falafel, but if we do see the blue arches, we're planning on having a kosher Happy Meal.  By the way,  McDonald's is a cheap meal in the holy land. Only $15 USD for two Happy Meals!

Masada

The plan was to visit Masada AND float on the Dead Sea.  We just made it to Masada, with a stop at the "lowest point on earth" for lunch.  What was the delay?  Well, first we had to have our Israeli breakfast, which is like breakfast, lunch and dinner combined.  (More on that later, I hope.)   Then we discovered that our rental car GPS system was not properly showing us our route to Masada and we were in fact heading to Tel Aviv, in the opposite direction.  Why?  Because Israeli rental cars do not provide navigation for the West Bank, and you need to pass through a section of the West Bank to get to Masada. Luckily, Steven had downloaded a navigation program on our iPad, and that saved the day. But we still had to turn around and retrace our route. Our trip through the West Bank (again, this is the section under full Israeli control), was uneventful.  Young IDF soldiers waved us through checkpoints with nary a comment.  We did see the "separation barrier" that divides the Palestine and Israeli territories, however. 

After a 90 minute drive, we arrived at the Masada museum.  Now, we could have walked up to Masada on the "snake path" and a lot of people do.  It's a good workout.  But we were already late, so we took the four minute cable car ride up.  Much easier.  The cable car lets you out at Herod's Northern Palace.  Benjamin and I are overlooking the palace in the top photo.  Herod spared no slave to build a terraced winter retreat, complete with banqueting halls for visiting dignitaries, and a huge bathhouse and gymnasium.  He brought in fresco and mosaic masters from Italy to decorate.  The walls were made from dolomite mined right at Masada, but the architectural flourishes, like column capitals, were brought ready-made from Rome. It must have been something in its day.  

Herod built a few more palaces on the Masada plateau,  along with lots of storage rooms for his Italian wine and apples and Spanish fish sauce.  He also had numerous cisterns built that could hold up to 40,000 cubit meters of water.  In the bottom picture, you can see the enormous southern cistern.  It's 64 steps down to the bottom and is absolutely amazing. 

But Masada is best remembered for the hold out of approximately 1,000 Jewish rebels against the Romans, some 60 years after Herod's death.  The middle picture appears to be a boring landscape of the Judean desert, but it is actually a picture of the ramp the Romans tediously built over many months to get to the top of Masada.  And there it stands, 2,000 years later.  Find the people walking up the trail beside the ramp, and you get a sense of the size of the ramp. You can still clearly see the seven camps and seige walls that the Romans set up in the valley below. 

Shopping at the Suq/Souk/Suk

However you spell it, souk, suk or suq, shopping at the markets in the Old City is an experience.  In the top picture, Samuel and Steven peruse paintings for sale in the Jewish quarter  As often happens in this old city, there was an archeological site in the midst of all the artwork.  We took a look at that too.  In the middle photo, we are in the Muslim quarter.  A mix of religious items, jewelry, spices, sweets and clothing are for sale, all tightly packed in shallow storefronts.  You have to ask for the prices, and be ready to haggle. 

Walking the ramparts of the Old City, Jerusalem

We were in the nick of time to walk some of the ramparts around Jerusalem's Old City.  We had to sneak it in before everything closed at 2 p.m. for Shabbat preparations on Friday afternoon.  Samuel is appreciating the view, as we walked from Jaffa Gate (constructed in 1538) to the Western Wall.    

Shrine of the Book

You might recognize the unique building behind us.  It was built to house the Dead Sea Scrolls, and is called the Shrine of the Book.  The dome is meant to resemble the top of the clay jars that contained these scrolls, written over a thousand years ago.  They include some of the oldest existing versions of scripture in the world.  In the center of the dome is a reproduction of the 23 foot long Isaiah scroll.  Our guide Micha waved that off as not worthy of viewing because it was just a fascimile.  His real interest was in the Aleppo Codex displayed at the base of a spiral staircase, directly below the fake scroll.   It is the oldest complete Bible in Hebrew, dating from the 10th Century.  He can read it easily, as the Hebrew has not changed at all over the centuries. 

Model of Jerusalem 1:25

In front of Samuel and our tour guide Michael (Micha), is a 1:25 scale model of Jerusalem as it looked 2,000 years ago.  It was a walled city of one square mile, twice the size of the currently surviving Old City.  This model is nearly fifty years old and is revised as archeological excavations occur around the city.   The model captures the Jewish apex of the city, with its golden Second Temple and the City of David.   

Knesset

Benjamin stands in front of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), which is closed for the day.  While I read that the style of the Knesset building was inspired by the Parthenon, I'm just not seeing it.  It looks like a large bunker to me.  It's election season in Israel and the bet is on Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu to continue as prime minister.  Our guide drove us past the prime minister's residence, which also looks like a bunker, with a little bouganveilla to soften the look.  A guard in front of the residence told our guide in Hebrew to "move forward a little", no lingering allowed. 

Yad Vashem museum

Above is the final view from the Yad Vashem Historical Museum, which commemorates the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.  Among beautiful grounds and numerous memorials, the historical  museum appears to be a massive A-framed structure.  Inside, the visitor looks down a tunnel, which begins with happy videos of everyday life before the war, descends into the horror of Hitler's Final Solution and rises up again toward a large balcony that overlooks the Judean hills that you see above.  Our guide told us this was intentional.  The memorial is not about hatred, it's about remembering the victims, he said, and looking up and forward to a better future.  The museum was filled with young IDF soldiers, who are frequently taken on outings to museums and other cultural events as part of their two year military service for Israel.

Mount of Olives

Here we all are at Mount of Olives, which is just East of the Old City of Jerusalem, and is so named because it used to be covered with olive trees.  There are still olive trees on the slopes, but it is mostly a residence for some of the 200,000+ Palestinians that live in Jerusalem.  The views are magnificent.  If you look carefully, you can see the gold Dome of the Rock in the distance.  This is considered one of the great Islamic sites, built in 688-91 AD and housing the "rock", which is variously described as where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Isaac, where Muhammad left the Earth, and the holy site of the Jewish Second Temple.  In any event, as non-Muslims, we are unable to visit this sacred rock.  Immediately below us is the world's largest Jewish cemetery, which is so full that only prominent Israelis are now buried there.  This was our first stop in our tour of Israel by our veteran tour guide Michael.  Michael was born at a kibbutz some 60+ years ago, and told us that it's not so much that he knows Israel, but that Israel knows him.  He also seemed to know every third person in the city, calling out greetings in Hebrew to acquaintances throughout the day. 

Western Wall

Benjamin, Samuel and Steven are in the foreground at the Western Wall.  I'm not in this picture, because women are limited to a much narrower section to the right of this picture.  Jessica and I went to the women's section and I left a note in the cracks in the wall, carefully backing away afterward, so I did not turn my back on the wall.  The Western Wall (Kotel) is what is left of the Jewish Second Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD by Roman Emperor Titus, and was never rebuilt, and it would be difficult to do so now, as the Muslims built the Dome of the Rock at the temple site about 600 years later.  So, it is just the wall to the west of the temple that is left and is held so sacred. 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

After the Western Wall tunnel tour, we met Jessica, a former colleague of mine now living in Jerusalem.  See her smiling face above.  We met her at Lions' Gate, after avoiding an incredible traffic jam.  Picture cars inches apart going in different directions with a lot of loud negotiating (e.g. yelling).  After that narrow escape, we worked our way down Via Dolorosa, which by tradition is the route  Jesus took from his condemnation to his crucifixion.  The street leads you to perhaps the holiest church in the world - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Jessica is standing in the courtyard to the church, which is really a mix of churches.  As Jessica ably explained, five different denominations uneasily coexist within the church.  See that wooden ladder in the second picture?  That ladder, (or its replacement) has been sitting there since the 1860s because no one knows which denomination put it there, so no one can agree to remove it.  Luckily, two Muslim families are in charge of opening and closing the church every day or there would be battles about that. 

Western Wall Tunnel

We started our first full day in Jerusalem with a tour of the Western Wall tunnel.  The Western Wall we are all familiar with is just a small portion of the entire wall. The rest is under continual excavation.  The "tunnel" that has resulted is a more a series of chambers and empty cisterns, with a few narrow tunnels (designed for short people) connecting them.  Our guide was a lively women from New York with a big voice.  That big voice was necessary in these tunnels.  You can see Benjamin above at the start of our tour.  Along the way, we saw a massive stone that had been moved in place to "glue" the base of the wall.  It was 35 feet long and weighed 570 tons (that's over 100 elephants, people!).  In fact, it's the third largest stone in the world.   The mastermind behind this wall was King Herod.  Not a nice man, but a great builder.  He had slaves chisel the stone fronts so that they had a distinct beveled edge.  This is called "Herodian" stone, though it is not visible on the outdoor section of the wall.   As we continued our walk, our feet touched stone pavers that were 2,000 years old and at the spot closest to the destroyed temple, devout Jewish women come at all hours to pray, seated in white plastic chairs.    

Note to future visitors: you may only see the tunnel as part of a guided tour, and must make reservations a month in advance.       

First Night in Jerusalem

After rushing to Heathrow airport this morning, only to discover it was practically deserted (it was Christmas day after all), we began our 4.5 hour flight from London to Tel Aviv.  We knew we were entering the Holy Land even before we got on the plane as we watched Orthodox Jewish men davening (praying) in the Heathrow terminal.  At Ben Gurion airport we were whisked through customs with nary a comment and then picked up sim cards and netsticks to keep us electronically connected.  About ten minutes later Jessica (who lives in Jerusalem) called me on my new Israeli phone number.  So, yep, it worked.   Then we caught a cab for the 40 minute ride to Jerusalem, and our hotel, Dan Panarama, pictured above.  Tomorrow we tour the Old City, so I better get some sleep.  Happy holidays everyone.    

London Eye

The London Eye has now been in operation twelve years, but is still a big draw, as we had to fight through the crowds on Christmas Eve to have a ride.  This isn't one of those creaky ferris wheels at the local fair.  This is the ultimate in observation platforms.  Over thirty minutes you smoothly rotate around in a full circle in slow motion.  It is never jarring and you really do see the sights of London from a completely new perspective.  You can see Samuel near the top of the wheel here.

Big Bus in London

We played tourist for the day in London, hopping on one of the numerous double-decker tour buses that criss-cross central London.  We chose Big Bus, which has an open air top.  Probably not the best choice for tourists from San Diego.  We were on the red line, which features live commentary from a London native.  He regaled us with tales of blood and guts, plus nursery rhymes.  Did you know that "Ring around the rosy", is not just a song for preschoolers to dance to?  It's all about the bubonic plague that struck London in 1665, killing over half the populace.  We'll never know the total number, as the Great Fire of 1666 burned all the church records.  The good news?  The fire killed all the rats that were spreading the plague. (Such things you can learn on narrated tours!)  Above is a panaramic picture Samuel took with my phone.  Steven is looking around for our bus stop, across from Westminister Abbey, as the sun is setting around 4 p.m.

First night in London

After a short delay, followed by an apology by the captain (sounding so much better with a British accent), our British Airways flight made the San Diego to London flight in under ten hours.  While the kids crashed in our Heathrow hotel room, Steven and I ventured out to the pub down the street. The door to the pub was about 5 feet tall and Steven had to duck to get in.  While listening to Bing Crosby and Motown tunes, we enjoyed some lager and traditional British delicacies.  Steven had a big slab of deep fried haddock, accompanied with chips and minted mashed peas.  I had the steak pie with creamed veggies and mashed potatoes (pictured).  More adventures tomorrow as we take the express train to central London.      

Packing for Israel

Are we completely ready for our trip?  Yes and no.  These suitcases are still empty.  But thanks to Steven's exceptional travel planning skills, our hotels are booked, our car rented, and our tour guide is engaged. We are also working diligently on our electronics.  Steven found several companies that will rent a sim card for your iPhone 5 that allows you to convert your U.S. cell phone to an Israeli cell phone, and avoid those astronomical long distance fees. Steven is also renting a cell phone that he'll pick up at the Ben Gurion airport, and this phone will have both an Israeli number and a U.S. number that can access this phone easily.  Will we be chatting a lot with friends in the U.S. while in Israel?  Maybe not.  There is that persnickity ten hour time difference.  But if we need to call, now we can.  We will also have a laptop and iPad. Because these days, leaving home without your digital connections is liking leaving home without your toothbrush.

Samuel celebrates his bar mitzvah

After years of hard work, Samuel was given the honor of reading from the Torah on November 3, 2012.  This is after the services, when he had the additional honor of being lifted up high during the traditional Hora dance.  He told me afterward that he was glad to have those arm rests!

Librarians' Book Club Reunion

Betsy and her friends from library school gathered in the University District in Seattle in July 2012 for great conversation and delicious Indian food.  We formed a book club many years ago when we were all working on our MLIS degree at the UW.  Some of the books we recently enjoyed: Gone Girl (couldn't put it down), and The Rook (sci-fi at it's best).  

Longmire, Mt. Rainier, WA

In July 2012, Samuel and Betsy joined Betsy's family and hiked trails in old growth forests in Mt. Rainier National Park.  This picture gives a sense of the immensity of the trees.  Betsy's brother was volunteering for the summer at Mt. Rainier, running geology tests and wearing a spiffy ranger's uniform (not visible here).  

Visiting the Grand Tetons.

Here are the Chesslers at Rendezvous Peak, Grand Tetons, WY, in August 2012.  We look fresh from our hike (we're at 10,000 feet), because we took a gondola ride all the way up.  We could definitely feel the altitude though.  It may be August, but there is still a little snow in the distance.