Day Three

Today we visited Caesarea Maritima (by the Sea). It was a Roman city and port built by Herod the Great and named after the ruler of Rome. We saw many parts of the old city, including the theater which is still used. There was also a hippodrome where chariot races were held. There is a nice view of the Mediterranean Sea from the hippodrome. The harbor area was made with a form of early concrete and the structures were built on the sand, so they eventually sunk and can only be seen while scuba diving.

The next place that we visited was Mount Carmel. It overlooks the Plains of Armageddon. At the top of the mountain there is painted circle that has arrows pointing to different places in Israel. There have been more battles in the Plains of Armageddon than on any other battlefield. This site has become a Catholic Monastery.

From Mount Carmel we traveled to Megiddo. Megiddo is something called a tel or a mound. There are many layers that make up the mound. Each of the layers are actually different cities that have been built one on top of the other. There are several of these mounds in Israel. They were started near water springs because there is not much water in the country. The last thing that we saw at Megiddo was a water canal that went deep underground. It was built by soldiers so they could gather water outside of their walls during war time.