I left Palestine and made my way on the bus to Tiberias, a town in the Sea of Galilee.  The bus ride was really nice, passing next to...

Sea of Galilee

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 I left Palestine and made my way on the bus to Tiberias, a town in the Sea of Galilee. 
The bus ride was really nice, passing next to the Dead Sea and one could even see Jordan!



After finding a place to stay in Tiberias I went for a quick stroll around the water.




The next day I took a bus to Taghba and Carpernaun, where many biblical stories happened.


The bus left me on the highway so I had no choice but to walk the 1 mile to the first church, the church of multiplication. It was in this church (well, back then it was not a church, but a rock) where Jesus fed a bunch of people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.



The entrance of the church


I really took my time to enjoy the church and waited for the tours to come and go and enjoyed the solitude of the empty church. I prayed and lit a candle for all of my mom's friends who constantly pray for my well being.

The rock where Jesus set the bread is now an altar, and the beautiful mosaics depict two fish and a basket with bread.

This church was recently re opened because a couple of years ago some Jewish extremists kids burnt it and they had to do some renovations, luckily the beautiful mosaics are still there :)





It was nice not having a car and having to walk from church to church and really take my time and take in the view!



The next stop was the church of the Primacy of St. Peter, believed to be the place where God appeared for the fourth time after his resurrection and reinstated Peter as the chief of Apostoles. I knew nothing about the history of these places but I'm so lucky to "speak" (or at least understand) four languages and if I sit for a couple of minutes there will be a group that comes with a guide and I get all the information about the place.





The rock (or altar) in this church symbolizes the place where Jesus had breakfast with his disciples and told Peter to "feed his sheep". The small little church was beautiful, specially the entrance doors!

I loved the doors!

The sea of Galilee

After the church I went up and started following the hiking path to the Mount of Beatitudes! The first stop was Eremos cave, I have no idea what happened there.
The cave! ... not very impressive

I kept walking up and then found a group of Germans having mass right there on the mountain! It was SO SO SO BEAUTIFUL! They had the Mount Of Beatitudes to the right and the sea of Galilee!


I kept walking up up up the mountain and noticed that everybody was walking down. Fray Oscar had told me that most people get a taxi up and then walk down. I had no taxi, my legs is all I've got so up I went up on my own two feet!


The Mount of Beatitudes is believed to be the place where Jesus delivered the sermon of the Mount. The place is just unbelievably gorgeous overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

The place was so crowded that I decided to walk away from the crowds and get some shots of the church... it was just so pretty!


The inside of the church
Then it was time to walk back down and decided to go off the path and instead of walking on the street I wanted to walk on the mountain, the problem was that there were no exits so I had to walk and try to figure out the way out of there!

After an hour+ walking down the hill, I finally arrived to the monastery where Fray Oscar had his second placement, Capernaun!
This is the only Franciscan site in the Holy Land where the Franciscans charge an entry because the site is in combination with a synagogue and the Jews charge entrance fees for their sites.
As I entered I walked by the lake and immediately knew why Fray Oscar loved this place so much, the view to Galilee is beautiful and gives a sense of peace but at the same time the many tourists take some of the charm of the place away.


The Franciscan church is very modern, has no pillars and is built on top of the excavations of what is believed was the house of Peter and an octagonal byzantine church.

View of the excavations below!

 After visiting the church I went to visit the 4th century synagogue and followed a French guide and got the info from her but I forgot it all!! haha



By then I was starving and I was so tired of walking non stop for at least 6 hours and had no energy left. I had no idea how to get back, I was at least 5 miles from the highway but decided to walk to the bus stop knowing there was a very slight chance of getting a bus back. I arrived at the bus stop and of course everything was in Hebrew and the times the bus passed were like hours apart so I had no other choice than to stick my thumb up and hitch hike back to Tiberias!
Luckily, within 2 minutes I got a couple to give me a ride all the way back to my Hostel! Yeay!

 Then, it was time to get a falafel and a bus to Nazareth!


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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

1 comment:

  1. Nancy MorrisJuly 21, 2019 at 4:26 PM

    Do you still not know what happened in the Eremos cave? It's the one place in the world I would most like to go. That was where Jesus went to pray.

    ReplyDelete

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com