The Holy Land
Visiting the holy land
Tamara’s trip to Israel - the Dead Sea and more
Visiting Israel has always been on my “bucket list”. The opportunity for this trip came during a very difficult time in my life after my broken engagement. I felt very strongly that this was God led and within moments of hearing about the trip I had paid my deposit. I was supposed to go last December but that trip was canceled because of Covid, and I am SO grateful it was because May was the perfect time to go! If you ever visit this part of the world May is perfect. Not too hot yet and April is difficult because of all the holidays they have that month and in March it tends to be rainy. Fall is also a nice time to visit.
I am normally not one to go on a tour led trip. I usually like to make my own plans and own schedule, but I knew for something like visiting the Holy Land I would want to go with a group. I didn’t want the group to be too big and I was very intentional with who I chose to go with. I have been doing the Bible Recap since last summer and the creator of the Bible Recap (Tara Leigh Cobble) also leads trips to Israel. She has developed a tour company with her partner in Israel Moshe. Together they make the perfect team. As TLC will tell you Moshe is the “head” and she is the “heart” which makes them a dynamic duo! They have quite a waiting list for their tours because they only do a couple a year but if you may want to go in the next couple years, I would sign up now! You can also hire them to do private tours. I just can’t offer a better way to visit the Holy Land! If not with Israelux Tours then find something similar to this!
They tell you from the beginning they only take you to see “A sites”. They take you to places they know for sure are where things actually happened or where they strongly believe they happened. And they leave off all the sites that are not proven or where they strongly believe these locations are made-up by the Catholic Church or other churches. So for example we saw Peter’s house because they know for sure it was his house. They take you to the southern steps where Jesus preached because they know he preached there. They also take you to places like the Garden Tomb but they are not 100% certain that was the burial place of Jesus but they have a lot of information leading to that being the spot. They do not however take you to the path where Jesus carried his cross to where He was crucified because they do not believe they have enough evidence to show where that was. Other churches will tell you this is the path or this is the exact spot where ABC happened but if TLC and Moshe don’t take you there it is because they can prove to you that this wasn’t the place no matter what church X may say. I tell you all of this because I think it is VERY important who you choose to go with when visiting this part of the world. So be selective! And I also would not advise going with a group over 40. I think 20-30 is the sweet spot but we had 40 (including our “staff”) and I wouldn’t have wanted to go with any more people.
As stated above I did not do any of the research for this trip. I did not plan a single meal or looked at any hotels. I can tell you the places we stayed and ate, and I can highly recommend them. I will also list all the places we saw and visited. We did a lot in our 10 days. Could have easily spaced this out a bit more and stayed two weeks to not have had so much packed in a day. We did not get to spend much time at all in Tel Aviv because it is not considered part of the Holy Land, however, if you go I highly recommend spending a couple days here on the front or back end of your trip.
Tel Aviv
Market Hotel
Galilee (which is a region). We stayed on the Sea of Galilee at the Sofia Hotel
Places to visit in and around Galilee:
Caesarea
Mt Carmel
Valley of Jezreek where Megiddo and Armageddon are
Mountain Beatitudes (where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount)
Tel Dan
Caesarea Philippi
Baptism in the Jordan River
Capernaum
Mesna Christi
Magdala (there is a recently excavated 1st century temple there where Jesus would have preached)
Boat ride on the Sea of Galilee
Places in and around Jerusalem:
Hotel Mamilla
Mt Scopus
City of David and the Pool of Siloam
Southern Steps
Machane Yeuda Market
Mt Zion and the Zion gate where you can visit the Jewish Quarter and the Roman Cardo
Western Wall
Western Wall Tunnels
Mt Olives
Walk the Palm Sunday Road
Garden of Gethsemane
Bethlehem
Shepard’s Field (and there is a church in a cave there that is similar to where Jesus would have been born)
Garden Tomb
Israel Museum
Ein Gedi (see the waterfall and where David ran from Saul)
Massada
Dead Sea (if you go here make sure to bring your water shoes). You can sign up with a hotel and pay to use their facilities to access the sea. They also have huge buffets at the hotels and you can eat lunch. Do not be expecting 5 star accommodations. Even though the hotels are nice the area where you can change and get ready is not great. The Sea is amazing and the outdoor pool is great. We went to Herod’s but there are a lot of hotel options. Herod’s is right on the sea which is nice. We did not stay here but if you wanted to spend a couple days you easily could. This area is all about the sea, spa and pool. There is nothing to do outside of the resorts in the area.
Finding Restaurants in Israel
When traveling with a group like this restaurants are hard. The hotels we stayed at are very nice and they have extensive buffets. We ate the buffet for breakfast every morning, did lunch on the road and dinner was sometimes at a hotel and sometimes at a restaurant. The food overall was delicious! Many of them are kosher so you will be offered dairy at breakfast but then at lunch or dinner is dairy free.
Places we ate outside of the hotel (there are a handful of places we ate that I do not have the name of but giving the ones I do know). The places I am mentioning are delicious and SO worth going!
Happy Fish (Jerusalem)
City View (Jerusalem)
Magdalena (Magdala) I will dream about this cauliflower for the rest of my life!
Mamilla Mall (Jerusalem) This outdoor mall has great coffee shops and restaurants.
Mahane Yehuda Market (I mentioned above) so great to walk around and eat! Falafel stands, havla (amazing sweet treat that is kind of like their version of fudge), meats and cheese, pastries, gelato, unreal candy stores, wine shops….I mean SO many great things! Definitely spend an afternoon here!
Other places to visit:
Razzouk Tattoo is where I got my tattoo. This place is Christian owned and the oldest tattoo shop in the world! It is family owned and they are amazing!
Amiad Winery super fun for unique wine tasting
Shopping
I went along with our crew when it came to shopping. TLC and Moshe always took us to a place in each area and told us what they were known for. I don’t have all the names but here is what I can share…
Tamar B’Kfar (really close to the winery I mentioned above). This place has all the teas, spices, dates, honey, olive oil etc etc you could want and more!
Tel Dan there is a gift shop that has beautiful jewelry and are known for their Roman glass pieces.
Blessings Gift Shop in Bethlehem…beautiful jewelry and gorgeous hand carved and machine carved (huge price difference) pieces made from olive wood. This is a Syrian Christian owned store in Bethlehem. Most of Bethlehem is now Muslim as it is under Palestinian leadership.
On your way to the Dead Sea there is a shop near Massads called Ahava Love Shop that has tons of cosmetics well as jewelry, spices, and other souvenirs.
When you are in the old town of Jerusalem walking around the Jewish Quarter there are some really fun places to shop. Lots of great jewelry here as well as artwork.
There is also a great shop at the Garden Tomb that has fun things, especially for kids. And they have very unique manger scenes made out of sheep’s wool.
A few “pro-tips” A “real” manager scene will not have the wisemen. They didn’t actually show up to see baby Jesus till he was about 2 years old. It would have Mary, Joseph, Jesus, some animals and possibly the angel. Not that you can’t get a manager scene with the shepherds and wisemen but to be clear they weren’t actually there
Also if you are a coffee drinker like me and want an iced coffee you do NOT want to order iced coffee in Israel. You will get a frozen, nasty, give you a cavity coffee. You want to ask for cold coffee. This will be a latte with whatever milk you want to add.
Certain areas take the sabbath very seriously so from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday finding things that are open is tricky. Even the hotels are very limited in what they serve for food and it isn’t the freshest or the best because they mostly use leftovers. It’s very interesting and how they do things and what is allowed verses what is not allowed doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me but it is how they live so be aware of this when being in Israel over Shabbat.
There is so much information to share and it is hard to get it all down in a blog, especially when I didn’t plan a single thing and was just along for the ride. But if you do have questions, want more detail, or more specifics about what I saw and did in each of these places please don’t hesitate to reach out. I am happy to share and answer any questions!
Happy Traveling!
XO - Tamara
