Come to Israel, Day 3, 2019 continues

 As we headed for the main road leading away from Bethany, it started to rain. While it was just drizzling, I snapped a pretty good picture of the blue skies over Bethany that we’d left behind in the hills.

As we were traveling to Cana in Galilee, the landscape around us gradually changed from scrubby desert with storms to shepherds' fields….

… to a real desert with a guard tower on top . And everywhere, everywhere there were caves.

Mid-way to Cana, we had to go through the West Bank checkpoint in Abu Dis, but no one even bothered to come on the bus. (However, Leo warned us that this was not the norm and that we should have our passports with us and expect to be checked at some point.)

From there we passed through the Jezreel Valley – which the Israelites call the Armageddon Valley because, according to Leo, they believe that the final battle (the Hebrew Armageddon) will be fought there.

Leo told us that before Cana, we would stop in Nazareth, at the Mount of the Precipice. This is the place where an angry mob tried to throw Jesus off the cliff after he preached in Nazareth.

Once there, we climbed the long, curving path to the top, which had a monument on it. The plaque explained that Jewish tradition has it that Jesus leaped from the top when the mob tried to throw him off.   

From the top of the cliff, you can see all of Nazareth, Cana, the Jezreel Valley and Mount Tabor…

Here at the top of the mount, it was drizzling, but the views and the feeling were so impressive that we all wandered a bit, then Leo walked us to the far back.

At the back edge of the top is where the angry mob tried to throw Jesus off the cliff after he preached in Nazareth, but he walked right through them. The drop from the edge of this cliff is 1,000 feet straight down!

By now it was raining in earnest, so we hurried back down the Mount, to the bus.  From here we drove down Main Street in Nazareth (Paul the 6^th street) to a little storefront for sandwiches. 

The shop had a back-room filled with tables and chairs, in what resembled (or really was!) a large cave.  It was a fun, true Israel experience.

After lunch, the sun was back out and we headed to the Church of the Annunciation, which is built over the house of the Virgin Mary. (more about this on Wednesday)