And now I'm two full days behind in keeping you up to date. Who knows, it may be Monday or Tuesday of next week before I get caught up on the updating! The tour is everything I could have imagined and a whole lot more. Below are pictures from Wednesday, but Thursday and today have been even better. We've walked where Jesus walked and touched the very ground and stone that He may well have touched Himself. We've been to Bethlehem and saw what is a very high probability of the exact spot where Jesus was born. I've prayed at the the wailing wall. The profundity of it all is close to overwhelming at times. Wow.

But, back to Wednesday.

This is where we stayed Monday and Tuesday.
It is a very nice hotel on an actual Kibbutz that does grow food, but has now branched into accommodations. As you can see, the hotel is still under construction.

Bet you've not seen too many of these!
On the sabbath (Shabbat), the Orthodox Jews are prohibited from doing any work. Even pushing elevator buttons. On the Sabbath, you stand in front of this control and the elevator will come for you. The elevator also stops at every floor going up and down, so no button pushing is required.

This is our van that shuttles us around. Yes, a Mercedes.

Welcome to Nazareth, where Jesus lived before He began His ministry.

Based on what I saw on this light pole, there are Christians doing real ministry here!

When Jesus lived here, there were a total of about 50 families in Nazareth.

This is the Basilica of the Annunciation.

It was here that the Angel appeared to Mary to announce the news that she would be what the Greeks call theotokos. It's one of the major shrines in Catholicism and a church has been here since the earliest of time. This one was completely reconstructed in the mid-20th century and has been visited by three popes since reconstruction.

As part of the peace settlement in the 70's, the muslims were given land directly in front of the basilica. They, of course, wanted to build a mosque on the land and build it bigger than the Basilica. Ariel Sharom refused to allow it. So this is what they have:

    
They do their prayers out in the open in the small building you see on the right in the smaller picture.

In case you thought all religions were tolerant and loving:

This banner is in their square, directly in front of the Basilica.

This energy drink is for sale in the shop directly next to the muslims:
  
Ah... what more can I say?

There's a parking garage available through this entrance. Reminded me of something out of an Indiana Jones movie!

 This fellow was just opening up his souvenir shop. Very nice, very colorful:

The basilica was beautiful!
    

This is the ceiling over the outside doors leading into the church building.

This altar is in front of the exact place where Mary's house was.

The foundation of the house is directly under this altar.

That was downstairs. This is upstairs.

There are stunning images on the walls given to the basilica when it opened by Catholic provinces all over the world.

This is a mosaic from Greece.

China's gift was spectacular!

On the left is the whole display, on the right the close-up detail.

This is the gift from Japan. Mother Mary and Jesus, as seen through Japanese eyes.

And just guess where this one came from: Yep. The U.S.A.
And yes, it is even uglier and more scary in person!

About 500 feet from the Basilica is St. Joseph's Church.

Joseph's carpentry shop is here, underneath the church.

This is an original floor from the Byzantine days (300 a.d.)
   This is what we can see of the workshop..

That is not trash, it is money from all over the world.

Next, we walked up about three blocks to where the Greek Orthodox say the Annunciation took place.  They say the angel appeared to Mary at the town well.

On the way...

Local advertising:
    

This church is built over the well.

And yes, those are Christmas decorations you see in the left-hand top of the pic.

This is inside the entrance. Uri, our guide, is explaining details to Sylvia.

This is the actual town well from Mary's time. The water is still flowing.

How's this for a pulpit?

We did some shopping in local stores after our visit. Take a look at this hand-made cross!

Syl and I ate freshly-made pastries at this shop

Some of the best sweets I've ever had!

It was still christmas there, as well..

On the road again.

This is Mt. Tabor - home of the Transfiguration.

Next stop was Bet Shefan, the location of Scythopolis - a city originally founded in 19 B.C.

50 years ago, it was completely buried under a thousand years of dirt.

These are the steam generators for a Roman bath house.

Here's how the bath worked back then, read each set of pictures from the right to the left:

This is Main Street.  

Individual shops are what you see in the background.

This is an artist's recreation for perspective:

Wow!

An earthquake leveled the city in the dark ages.

The survivors were unable to rebuild, and they simply moved away.

Middle Eastern thorns. Jesus's crown of thorns were plaited from these.

Ok, now this is some kind of neat! You are looking at a first century Roman public restroom.

You would sit between the stones. Mercy!

They had an amphitheater in Scythopolis.

A very well-preserved piece.

The view at lunch was amazing.

On the road again, headed to Jerusalem. This is farm country!

As we neared Jericho, we passed an arabic version of South of the Border.

Look! They offer Camel Rides. Just five shekels!

We simply had to stop and check this out.

Oh Yes, I did.

The bedouins live in the desert, between Jericho and Jerusalem They still are nomadic, but they don't use tents these days.
The buildings are sheet metal shacks, easily unassembled when moving time comes. They also had satellite dishes...

This is the checkpoint for entering into Jerusalem. You cannot take pictures here. Shhhh!

Welcome to Jerusalem!

Looks like a blend of old and new. On Thursday, we explored this city.

So that's it for two days ago. Tomorrow (Saturday) we'll head to the Dead Sea and Massada. I'll keep trying to catch you up, but again, I can't promise when the next update will come. Thanks for your prayers. We feel them. God bless you all!

Goodnight from Jerusalem!