Going North

On Saturday, an American friend, who lives and works here took me on a great tour of the northern part of Israel. We went to Haifa, which is on the Mediterranean. We walked around the old part of the city, and then we had lunch at a small cafe right on the water. It was beautiful! Haifa has a lot of history connected with the Crusades. It was one of several entry ports for the Crusaders, and it was a well fortified city--the old walls and gates are beautiful. After lunch, we drove to Ber'am, which is the village where Archbishop Elias Chacour lived as a child. The village was destroyed in 1948, and Chacour wrote about that in his book Blood Brothers. Then we drove up into the Golan Heights near the borders of Lebannon and Syria. We took the road on the eastern side of the Sea of Gallilee, parallel to Jordan, home, stopping off at several places on the way. My friend has lived here for a long time and is so knowledgable about the area, both its recent and biblical history. It was a definately a fun and fascinating day!!