For years I’ve wanted to go to Israel and when I say years I mean YEARS. The week of Thanksgiving that dream came true! Explaining what this trip meant to me in this blog won’t be easy, but I’m going to give it my best shot. First of all, let me tell you my husband and I fit A LOT into this 10-day trip to Israel. We went to a lot of places and saw so many things.
For the first four days of our trip, we stayed in Old Jerusalem in the Muslim Quarter. By the way, there are four quarters: The Muslim Quarter, The Christian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter. The place we stayed in was small, but it was all we needed and I thought it was cute. On our first night in Old Jerusalem, we went to the Western Wall and saw so many men praying. It was our first night and I was already feeling overwhelmed with tears in my eyes. I was at the Western Wall! It was an amazing sight to see. While we stayed in Old Jerusalem we walked up and down all the different streets. We saw so many different shopping stalls and yes, we bought souvenirs. We walked along the Via Delarosa, we went to the Church where they believe Jesus was put on the cross and where they believe His tomb was. We ate delicious food.
On one of the days we were staying there we had a driver take us to Bethlehem in the West Bank area. He took us to Jericho, the mountains where Jesus stayed for 40 days and 40 nights, He took us to the Church where they believe Mary gave birth to Jesus, He took us to the area where Zachius’s tree would have been and last he took us to the Valley of Achor better know as the Wadi Qelt. The Wadi Qelt was a very emotional spot for me. I’ve been wanting to visit that places for about 15 years now, since the time when I was in a ladies’ Bible Study and we studied the book of Joshua. A dream come true and well worth the wait.
The second half of our stay was in an Airbnb in Nazareth. This place was beautiful. The first thing we did in Nazareth was a walk to the Church that is surrounded by the cave they believe Mary lived in. We also went to the church that is built over the Synagogue that Jesus would have taught at. While we stayed in Nazareth we had a rental car so we could drive to places like Tel Dan, the Sea of Galilee, Tel Megiddo, Caesarea, and many other places. Like where they believe Peter’s house would have been! We went to an area that has an ancient ruined city. When you think about it there are a lot of ancient ruined cities in Israel that need to be found like the City of David which was found years ago.
There are other places that we went to. Fitting it all in this blog isn’t possible. So I will be writing more blogs about the different places we went to and the different things we saw and experienced. I will be able to go more in-depth about each place in their own blogs. For now, I’m just giving you a little summary of each location. I hope you will enjoy all the blogs that I have planned for Israel and the places we visited and what we experienced in the coming weeks and months.
Kathleen Smith author of Miscarriages My Story, Brooklyn Raised Livin’ Upstate & Hey You Moments to Remember. Blogs about a variety of things. Has her own podcast Kathleen’s Korner and she is the CEO of BearsWithApps. OH, let’s not forget her YouTube channel