Some Pretty Old Stuff

Shopping street, with old city "tell" in back

On Friday our travels took us to a place few have heard of: Beit She'an. Just south of the Sea of Galilee, it is a large ruin of Byzantine structures built on Roman foundations. Fascinating remains of Roman baths, with steam pool, warm pool, and cold pool, using an intricate way of controlling water temperature in each setting, amazed us. Massages, skin cleansing, and even a lecture on philosophy could be had for no extra cost! Additional sites included a great shopping street, mosaics in the walks, a pagan temple, a neat theater, and a public latrine that seats 40 at a time (really). A climb to the top of a pile of dirt covering the most ancient part of the city provided great views. King Saul's dead body once went on display here courtesy of the Philistines.

We continued down the road on the Israeli side of the Jordan River, soon entering the West Bank area, formerly a part of Jordan, but now Israeli occupied.  The scenery got drier and the temperature hotter. The areas to our east are the "wilderness of Judea"and likely the scene of the Temptation of Jesus. The prosperous looking farms were usually Israeli settlements or kibbutzim, the poorer farms and housing, Palestinian Arab. We made it to Jericho for lunch and a look at walls and a watchtower foundation nearly 10,000 years old. Jericho is the oldest place of continual human habitation on earth.

St. George Greek Orthodox Monastary

Continuing on the road up (and we mean UP) to Jerusalem, we detoured to look down a deep wadi (dry canyon) to view an Orthodox monastery and hermitage clinging to the side of the rocks. In Jerusalem, we stopped on the Mt. of Olives to get the panoramic view of Jerusalem, but hustled back to the bus because of cold winds.

We are now at the beautiful and clean guest house at the International Center of Christmas Lutheran in Bethlehem, and await our travel tomorrow to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth.