Days 1 & 2 - Travel, Caesarea & Eilabun

 

Our epic journey to the Holy Land began with an epic flight. After taking a puddle jumper to Atlanta, we embarked on a 12-hour journey past Newfoundland, across the Atlantic Ocean, over France, through Italy and Greece, and across the Aegean Sea to touch down in Tel Aviv. The Delta flight was relatively easy — comfortable enough with two fairly tasty hot meals. There’s just no way to avoid achy knees, tired eyes, and jet lag after taking a long red-eye flight like this across the world.

Matt & Lauren say goodbye to sweet Henry for a whole week. Lauren stole Elmo to take along to Israel in Henry’s honor.

The red-eye flight begins!

Our fearless guide, Awesome Matt, led us easily through customs and security, past the baggage claim, and to our rental car. We arrived in Israel around 10 in the morning. Even after a sleepless night on the plane, Awesome Matt said the best way to confront jet lag is with sunshine and a sea breeze. He drove us directly to the amazing ruins at Caesarea National Park, where we saw ancient Roman aqueducts, a hippodrome where chariots raced and gladiators fought to the death, a theater, and the rest of the Roman infrastructure that constituted Roman life: Bath houses and community latrines, a palace swimming pool, a prison, and even the tax office. (Interestingly, one of the 2000-year-old arches in the Roman aqueduct collapsed about 3 weeks ago, making international news, so the aqueduct was fenced off and being worked on when we were there.) There are layers upon layers of history here – houses built on top of Roman stadiums, Mameluke Muslim minarets next to a Crusader promenade. It’s impossible to grasp the antiquity of this ruin, initially built by King Herod the Great between 22 to 10 BC. We ate a delightful seaside Mediterranean meal among the ruins. This site is very spread out and it takes a long time and a lot of walking to see most of it. The sun was hot and we were very tired from the flight, but that didn’t stop Carol from beating her record “Outdoor workout,” according to her Apple Watch.

Lauren & Matt take a dip in a Roman Bath

Mameluke Minaret (Prayer tower on a mosque)

Roman Hippodrome (home of chariots and gladiators)

We made our way north to Galilee to the town of Ailabun (also spelled Eilabun), an Arab Christian village near Nazareth, and to the apartment we’re staying in for the first four days of our trip. It’s much more spacious than anticipated! Our hosts Lina and Hanna are leaders of a church supported by CHLF. They welcomed us to their town with a delicious meal of barbecued pork skewers and a wide variety of salads and sauces representing Arab cultures in the area. We finished dinner with ice cream sundaes and Arabic coffee. What a delight!

Yummy dinner!

Lina prepares Arabic coffee — a strong brew made with cardamom

Awesome Matt then took us to see the sunset over the Sea of Galilee after dinner, on a small beach with a waterfall coming out of the hillside. So peaceful. An absolutely gorgeous end to our day. Lots of holy sites to visit around this area, but we’ll leave those for tomorrow. Bed is calling...