CYAN in Israel May 2011

We continued motoring through the Suez Canal and were as happy as every other cruiser to see Egypt in our "rearview mirror". As interesting as it was, it was mostly really annoying!! We had a nice smooth overnight "soft sailing" passage to Ashkalon Marina in Israel. We spent a month in Israel and were so interested in the history, archeology and stories bringing to life old Bible tales. We really enjoyed being able to buy western products again even at "knock our socks off" prices! Israel is no bargain!!!

We took a bus to Jerusalem and then rented cars several times and became familiar with traveling in a country where we could go to places where some of the locals couldn't. This was because some lived in Jewish areas and some in Palestinian held areas. It was all so very strange be we really did not feel unsafe. The tourist sights were very well interpreted and most were actually inspired. We were so interested in old Jewish history rather than Christian history. Most significant Christian locations had some gaudy, huge church built on top of it and it had no inspiration to it at all.

We must make note about our trip to Hebron, a Palestinian stronghold. The Temple there is as old as the one in Jerusalem but it has not been destroyed. It holds the remains of Abraham and his decendants...really. It's all right there in the Bible and he is way down there below the building, but they won't let anyone get anywhere near it except for one small corner and that's only very recently.

Traveling around Israel-more than we can cover in just a few photos but take a look:

Jaffa Harbor, Jonah left from here	Herods port of Caerarea	Chuck races chariots	North Israel	Nimrods Crusader Castle
Inside Castle	Qumron, where Dead Sea Scrolls were found	Dead Sea From Masada Top	Dead SEA View	Model of Masada Herods retreat
Masada Remains	Temple at Hebron	Hebron view

When we first came to Ashkalon we planned a few days in Jerusalem and we saw all the usual things. We were so overwhelmed at the amount of history and archeology to be gained that we just had to make another trip back to visit the City of David and other less visited and mostly archeological attractions. We were most interested in the vast amount of archeological information that is continuously uncovered. All this, even though the Muslims do everything in their power to stop all information from being revealed because they deny the existance that Hebrews ever lived anywhere in Jerusalem. They only see it all one way: their way!

We saw very few Christian locations in Jerusalem that we were very impressed with but visiting the Mount of Olives was worth while. The location of the Last Supper, seen in photo below, seemed to be well documented. The rest of them were all just too sketchy.

Here are our photos of just Jerusalem where we visited twice. We were overwhelmed!

Jerusalem Wall	Muslim Dome of the Rock	Walking in ruins	Excavations near Western Wall	Room of Last Supper
First Church	Contrast	Generations	Park View	City of David
Mount of Olives	Mass

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