On our way home

December 16, 2010—Thursday
Today did not work out the best, but it was still a good day. We drove through Cana to go to Nazareth. Cana is a small Palestinian town with lots of traffic. Nazareth is a city spread out on two hills and in the valley in between with narrow streets and lots of traffic. We weren’t successful in seeing the Church of the Annunciation, where the Angel Gabriel came to Mary. There are a couple of churches by that name. We passed one but could not stop because there was no place to park on the narrow street, or down the street.
We did get to see part of the Jezreel Valley, or the Valley of Armageddon, but from our vantage point, we could only see the southeast part. We did end up driving through the Valley of Armageddon on the way to Caesarea.
When we arrived there, half of the park was closed because of the storm on Saturday. It washed away the breakwater, and the waves are washing away the beach. They fear what is left of Caesarea will fall into the Med. The storm also caused part of a cliff to fall, revealing a headless Roman statue. We did get to see where Paul testified before King Agrippa II, at least through the fence.
We went over and sat in the Roman amphitheater. I could hear a guy having a phone conversation on the other side of the theater on the top room. Perfect acoustics. We also discovered the ancient dressing rooms under the theater’s stage area. It looks like they are still used as dressing rooms because there was a costume in a plastic bag hanging in each cubicle. The cubicles have had mirrors added to them. In several were round stone basins on the floor, I guess for water.
Caesarea was a huge port designed by Herod the Great. He had a protected harbor created to bring trade there. He had a palace on the beach, a lighthouse, a temple to a Roman god, a hippodrome for chariot races, and the theater. It was a great feat constructing it in a short time. It changed hands a couple of times between Muslims, Byzantines, Crusaders, etc.
Caesarea was about it for us. We drove through Tel Aviv and on to the airport.
It has been a really great trip. We were able to see more places than on the previous trip and take our own time doing them. It has been a great blessing to share this with Logan.