Galavanting Gleefully in Gorgeous Galilee

Sunday morning. Now that the Sabbath was over, everything was back to normal, buses running, banks and shops open - so we could now make our way to Tiberias. I could hardly believe that we'd already been in Jerusalem (let alone Israel) for 4 days, it was pretty much the longest we'd been in any place on this trip and seeing as I'd been so nervous about coming here, I had thought we'd get in, see the stuff, and get out to someplace less volatile. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find that I'd been wrong about Jerusalem, and although there was a constant police / military presence, it was actually relatively safe. I didn't see any shootings or suicide bombers or anything whilst we were there - although the Polish Franciscan monk at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre told us that the day we went to Jericho, there had been a shooting right there in the souk - some guy running away from the military or something - and in the crossfire one of his monk mates had been injured. That kind of freaked me a little, that we could've been there if it wasn't for the fact that on a whim we decided to go to Jericho that afternoon.

I guess psychologically though I had felt pretty good, pretty safe in Jerusalem, but I won't deny that physically it was another matter. Don't want to gross you out too much, but refer back to the Killer Burek. The body didn't believe what the brain was telling it. So it was with some degree of relief that we left Jerusalem and headed for Tiberias, by the Sea of Galilee. This way we could get in some more Jesus sites but hopefully without all the tension. But first, we had to get there.

This should have been relatively straightforward, and to a certain extent it was, once we actually got on the bus. But before that could happen, we had to get into the bus station.

At many major buildings, businesses and even some restaurants in Jerusalem (and as we later found out, in Israel in general) you often have to pass through security scanners. At the bus station, this involved us having to heft our luggage up onto the belt (no mean feat, in Agnieszka's case, as her suitcase weighed a ton), open up our day bags for inspection, and pass through the beepy thing. Even after your bags passed through the scanner successfully, they still opened them up and the security people would stick that explosive detecting wandy thing inside the bag and rummage around. So it meant that it took a lot longer to get into the bus station than you would normally think. Plus, the bus station is pretty big, like a big shopping centre or something, so I waited with the bags whilst Agnieszka went in search of the ticket counter. This we eventually found up, a couple of levels up in the shopping centre - we only had a few minutes before the bus went, and again there was more scanning of the luggage. Finally made it onto the bus.

It took a couple of hours to get to Tiberias. Tiberias is the main town on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and as such, is the place that most tourists use as a base for exploring the Galilee region. Seeing as its kind of like a seaside resort, we thought we could spend the afternoon getting 'chocolate brown' (well, not me) on the beach. Do you think we could find a beach? No, the beaches we saw were quite minging, just a pile of rocks, couple of fishermen, no-one swimming (there were 'swimming prohibited' signs everywhere) - in fact, no-one even walking around the town wearing swimmers or even swimmers under their clothes like we'd seen in other resorts on this trip. Odd. So we couldn't bear the heat any longer, and headed off for a restaurant / cafe nearby - expensive fruit smoothie I had there too - and scoped out the information from the waitress. Yes, there is a beach nearby - 10 minutes walk out of town - but its a private beach. We decided to just head out of town and go lakeside in the hopes we could find somewhere suitable for a quick swim. Alas, nowhere - so we ended up at the private beach - but now its later in the afternoon, and it really went against the grain to have to pay full price to be there for literally an hour and a half. She knocked 5 shekels off the price (60p). How big of her.

But finally we were in the water. It was so amazing to think that this is the place where Jesus walked on the water. Some people reckon that actually he was walking on rocks just below the surface, but I can tell you, there certainly aren't any. And the water is pretty deep.

A couple of people had taken the sun chairs into the water and were just sitting there by the water's edge. I tried to do this too, but I couldn't just sit there. As you know, I am the Chosen One. This time the biting was being done not by medusas, sea lice or some such - no, this time it was sweet, innocent little whitebait. And actually some of those whitebait can be a bit vicious!

There were people there doing a spot of fishing too - with bread. This one guy would chuck a piece of bread in the water, the fish would pounce, then he'd scoop them up in a cup and put them in a plastic bag. A couple of people took them home to their aquariums. Hey, to each their own - I souvenired some rocks, they took whitebait... whatever.

So we spent a pleasant afternoon there, and then headed off back into town for a bite to eat. It was really very lovely to sit in a restaurant by the side of the lake and watch the sun set. What a lovely day!

The next morning we again were up early, well Agnieszka was - we didn't know the times of the buses to Nazareth, and we needed to go there for the morning then find a bus to Tel Aviv in the afternoon. Our flight was scheduled to leave tomorrow night from Tel Aviv, and we were a little concerned, because the guy at our hostel said that it had been on the news that there was a baggage handler strike at the airport. Anyway, Agnieszka found out there was a bus at 9, so we packed up and headed off to the bus station. The little bus station at Tiberias didn't have the security measures of the one in Jerusalem, so we were able to go straight through.
We got the bus to Nazareth, but then we had a problem. Our luggage. What to do with the luggage whilst we visited the Church of the Annunciation? And anyway, where was it? So, we got a taxi, and then felt like fools. The church was literally just up the hill. Oh well, at least we didn't have to carry the luggage up the hill. I parked myself under a tree with the luggage whilst Agnieszka visited the church, then she swopped with me and I had a look. Fortunately it wasn't so OTT, there's a little chapel downstairs which is supposed to be on the exact spot where the Angel Gabriel visited Mary, but I couldn't go in, there were a load of people there having a mini church service.

Outside and also upstairs in the main chapel were a load of icons and pictures donated from all around the world, depicting the Annunciation, and this one is the Aussie one:

We finished our visit at the Chapel and then headed back to the centre of town to get the bus to Tel Aviv. But this is where we were getting conflicting information, some people were telling us that this was the correct bus, we needed the 826 or something, but they didn't know what time it would go (maybe an hour, one man volunteered) and also, the number of that bus was not mentioned with all the other bus numbers on the bus stand sign. A couple of other blokes reckoned we needed to get a taxi out to the outskirts of town, then we could pick up a minibus from there. They told us if we waited here for the bus we wouldn't get on it because it would be full, so we needed to follow their suggestion - but of course when we questioned them more on it, we discovered they were taxi drivers and we figured they were probably just looking for a fare. Plus, we didn't fancy a crappy minibus with all of our heavy and bulky luggage. We decided to give it another 30 minutes before we would admit defeat and get a cab.

Luckily, 29 minutes and 30 seconds later, the 826 turned up, we got on it, and there were plenty of spare seats. Plus it was a nice bus, not a crappy minibus, with a luggage hold and, most importantly - air-conditioning!

On then, James - on to Tel Aviv!