Day Five

Our day started at the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount. There is a beautiful garden full of palms, hibiscus and roses, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. There is a church on the mountain commemorating the traditional site. This is called a traditional site because it is not known exactly where the event took place. It is just an assumption of where it is.

The next place that we went to was Tel Dan. The town was built next to the River Dan which is a river that flows into the Jordan River. The tel was made of the boulders from around the area. Outside of the walls of Dan is an ancient gate that was discovered and found to be the oldest in the world. It was the gate to the ancient city of Laish, where Abraham came to rescue Lot.

The last two places that we visited were in the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights are a mountainous region that are desirable for several countries because of the strategic location. We went to Caesarea Phillipi, an ancient pagan city. There was a temple to the Greek god Pan built here and niches carved out of the rock for statues. It was also called Panias. The Mount Hermon spring runs right through the ruins. Caesarea Phillipi was one of the places where Jesus taught. We ate falafel and goat cheese pita lunch high in the Golan Heights in a Druze village, overlooking a crater lake and snow covered Mount Hermon. We also went to Mount Bental. It was a military post during the wars against Syria for control of the Golan Heights. You can see Lebanon, Syria and other parts of Israel from the top. There was a directional sign at the top of the mountain that showed that Washington, D.C. was 11,8000 km away. That is over 7,000 miles!