While in Israel this past August, I ended up with an unusually small quantity of travel pictures to share. Between visits to relatives, the Bat Mitzvah ceremony (for which we hired a professional photographer), beach outings, and chilling in Tel Aviv, I only used my camera in a handful of…
Israel’s national parks system deserves many superlatives, encompassing over 70 historical and natural sites across the country. That includes all non-urban World Heritage sites, so on my first visit to Israel, I purposefully stopped by quite a few of the national parks. Tzipori was one that I haven’t been to…
Israel has ten World Heritage sites – and on my first trip a few years ago, I visited nine of them. The tenth – Bet Guvrin-Maresha National Park, inscribed on the list for its fairly unique conglomeration of distinct-purpose cave complexes – was on the itinerary back then as well,…
This is far from a tremendous addition to my Jerusalem portfolio first started in this post. There are several overlapping reasons for the paucity of my photographic output on this recent visit. I will not bore you with them. A few reasonably good shots are in here somewhere. The doors…
This favorite photograph is actually a shot that went rather wrong when it was taken. It is a picture of the lake adjoining the Dubai Mall, with Souk Al Bahar prominently shown on the left. The lower levels of Burj Khalifa skyscraper occupy part of the background on the right.…
This is one of the most recent entries on my list of favorite shots. I stood on this spot and took this shot only about 5 months ago. This is the port of Yafo (I prefer the Hebrew transliteration to the more commonly used name of Jaffa), a millennia-old settlement…
My Jordan trip was organized by a company called Desert Eco Tours. They handled all logistics, transportation, and accommodations from the moment I approached the border crossing between Eilat and Aqaba until the moment I was crossing in reverse direction. At least a dozen different people facilitated different legs of…
My two days in Jordan gave me two of the most amazing places I have ever been to. We already talked about Petra. The following day my destination was Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is inscribed both as a natural and a cultural World Heritage property. I left practically all of…
The “New 7 Wonders of the World” campaign run by a private foundation at the beginning of this century may have been a popularity contest susceptible to vote manipulation, but only one or two of its final selections would ever be questioned as not entirely worthy of the designation. Petra…
A few locations that I stopped by or simply passed through on my recent tour of Israel did not result in a sufficient photographic output to merit separate blog entries. Nor could they be logically combined with other locations that I covered in a dozen-plus prior posts. This catch-all entry,…
Caesarea frequently features on the highlights-tour itineraries of Israel. It started as a seaside settlement during the Persian rule in the 6th century BCE, rose to prominence at the times of King Herod around year 6 BCE, continued to flourish through the Byzantine period, and then lost its significance after…
For reasons both of my own doing and outside of my control, the Old City of Acre did not get a fair shake from me. I initially planned to visit it with a guide, in the early part of my itinerary, and give it 3-4 hours. In the end, I…
The World Heritage inscription of the Baha’i Holy Places emphasizes their deep spiritual value and the tradition of pilgrimage in the Baha’i faith. I am not convinced that it counts as Outstanding Universal Value, but the two main compounds mentioned on the inscription, one in the center of Haifa and…
Although its prosperous lifespan lasted less than a hundred years, Masada holds a surpassing symbolic value of Jewish pride and resolve due to the circumstances of its demise in 73 CE. The Roman legions laid siege to the seemingly impregnable fortress where a few thousand members of the Jewish revolt…
The Nabatean Kingdom, with its capital in Petra in Jordan, was a major trading power in the Levant from about the 3rd century BCE until the 4th century CE (the last few under the largely benevolent yoke of the Roman Empire). The Nabateans carried their incense trade to the Mediterranean…
Trips to a number of West Bank destinations are fairly easy to arrange through a variety of travel channels while touring Israel. Given the number of holy Christian sites in the region, there is daily a steady stream of visitors that sustain a significant percentage of West Bank’s GDP. My…
A day and a half was my itinerary allotment to see Jerusalem’s Old City. That appears to be enough to see all of the major points of interest, although in a city with such wealth of historical context, you will feel like you rushed through some of the sights no…
Anyone who knows anything about the world history cannot be surprised that Israel abounds with archaeological sites of note. Eastern Mediterranean lands have been settled by various civilizations across different eras, and they all left reminders of their heyday. In many instances, those reminders are stacked upon each other in…
I spent portions of three different days in the northern part of Israel historically known as Galilee. Although I visited a number of towns, sights, and national parks, that only scratched the surface. This is the area that is incredibly picturesque and heavy on history and archaeology, as well as…
Necropolis of Bet She’arim is a significant monument of Jewish history, but I suspect only a dedicated WH chaser would include it on an itinerary when visiting Israel for the first time. This is not a must-see but it has to be said that it is one of just a…