by Stephen Hobbs
We met the other people at Heathrow. We had quite a long wait until the aircraft took off. We had a good flight to Larnaca. We had lunch on the plane. Arrived at Larnaca, and then caught the flight to Tel Aviv, where we were picked up by Glyn Morgan and Moshe, who took us to the the hotel. We arrived at the hotel in Natanya at about ½ past one. It was a short nights sleep.
On the first morning we had a meeting in the hotel, in a room that overlooked the sea. Then we went shopping in natanya and had lunch at ‘the Scotsman’. Then we walked back along the beach, I enjoyed it really, it was very pretty. It was a free day.
We went on our first tour, to Emmaus. We went on to where John the Baptist was born. We had lunch in Jerusalem, and then we went on to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. We changed coaches (we had to use Palestinian coaches in Bethlehem – ed) I thoroughly enjoyed it , it was very interesting really, to see the manger. I liked the fact that it was a cave (the stables Jesus was born in was a cave, not at thatched shed – ed). Then we came back to the hotel for dinner. I think the food here is very good.
We went to Caesarea where we had a look at the Roman Theatre, It was where Paul stood trial before Herod. We went on to Cana of Galilee, It was where there was a wedding where Jesus turned water into wine, the first Miracle. Then we went to have lunch in a Kitbutz, I thought it was quite a good lunch really. We then went on to Nazareth, where we had a look round a church about the virgin Mary, where she met the Angel who told her she was going to have a son. We then spent some time in a gift shop.
We had a late breakfast, and then we had a service in the hotel. It was another free day, so we had dinner overlooking the sea, and then we sat around the pool and had a swim. (31C – lovely! – ed)
We went to Galilee today. We went to the river Jordon where there was a baptism of a lot of people, I was very impressed. After that we went to Tiberius where we had lunch, and then went on a boat on the sea of Galilee . Then we went to Caperneum where there were a lot of ruins (one was of St Peter’s house) We then went to see the mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus gave a sermon.
The coach went past Jerusalem to the Desert. We saw the road which Jesus talked about in the story of the good Samaritan, and then had a look at Jericho – there was just so much to see today. It was very hot in the desert. Some arabs asked us if we wanted to ride a camel. Later we went on to the Dead sea, where I had a swim, I was very impressed. We changed hotels today, so we are now staying in Jerusalem.
In the morning we went to see the garden of Gethsemane, some of the olive trees had been around when Jesus walked there. We had our photo taken there. We went to the old city where we saw the western wall (wailing wall). We had lunch near there in a tunnel. From there we went to the Garden tomb (Gordon’s tomb) I was very impressed really – we had a talk about what we were looking at, and we saw the rock of the skull as well. We saw the tomb. We had a service of hymns and prayers.
We went to a modern shopping place today. It was much cooler there than outside. We didn’t buy much as it was expensive really. But we had lunch there.
We went back to Bethlehem in a minibus. We went to a shop to buy our gifts to take home, and then went to a (Palestinian Christian) Restaurant for lunch. The food was very nice, but a bit different. The people were very friendly and helpful
Left the hotel at 3am, it rained – first we’ve seen! Security was a bit of a nightmare, 3 of our group had our suitcases searched – nothing to find except dirty clothes. Changed planes in Larnaca again, then back home to sunshine, but a bit cooler than Israel
