Tour Diary
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Thursday, July 7th, 2011
The moat and walls of Caesarea's Crusader-era city.
When most people visit Caesarea, the beautiful Israeli coastal city between Netanya and Haifa, they focus on its history and archaeology in the Herodian (early Roman) and Byzantine periods. While most visitors walk right through the heart of the Crusader era city, they barely pay any attention to it. But the truth is that Caesarea has some of the best remains in Israel through which to gain an understanding of the architecture of the late Crusades, and of the impact that this slice of history had on the land of Israel.
I remember the first time I visited Caesarea (a few years ago), I started as most people do at the southern end of the National Park, near the Roman-era Theater. We toured through most of the Roman and Byzantine areas, and then approached a large, walled-in area. As we passed through the wall, I saw a large open space with lots of green grass. Inside of these walls I also found a number of stores and restaurants, which probably contributes to the area being overlooked within the archaeology at Caesarea. True, the walls are virtually impossible to miss. But when the inside has a lot of modern stores and eateries, it is easy to overlook the history, despite the benefits of this mix.
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Tags: archaeology, architecture, Baibars, Caesarea, church, Crusaders, fortifications, gate, Louis IX, Mamluks, moat, walls
Monday, May 9th, 2011
Heliostat array at BrightSource's Rotem test facility
I took a friend down to the Negev desert last week for a tour focused on various environmental topics. We visited sites and discussed issues of CleanTech/Green energy, water usage, desert agriculture, ecology, etc. In addition to being interesting for me, I see it as another niche in which I may work in the future (a number of people expressed an interest in a tour like this once I described it). I designed the tour almost as a “mission,” mixing traditional site visits, meeting with experts and tours of business sites.
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Tags: Avdat, Ben Gurion University, BrightSource, CleanTech, desert agriculture, Leviathan Energy, Makhtesh, Michael Evenari, Nabateans, Negev, Rotem, Sde Boker, solar energy, water, wind power
Monday, November 1st, 2010
The Catholicon (Greek Orthodox sanctuary) of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
One of the fun things that I do as I prepare to become a tour guide in Israel is practice! It helps me learn to plan a tour, make it flow seamlessly and learn such things as timing, reading the audience, use of visual aids and organization of material. So it is really a very necessary aspect that, while not an official part of my tour guide studies, I still take quite seriously.
A few weeks ago, I took two women around for a day-long walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem (mostly). They were two friends, one of whom was Jewish and one of whom was Christian, though neither was particularly religious. The Christian was here on her first trip to Israel, while the Jewish woman lives here, though not in Jerusalem. My goal for the day was to expose them to the sheer wealth of history that fills Jerusalem, as well as show them the diverse cultures and religions that are found here. Ultimately, I wanted them to see what a beautiful, complex and historic city I live in. I thought it might be interesting and useful to describe the itinerary we had for the day.
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Posted in Israeli Tourism, Tour Diary | 2 Responses »
Tags: archaeology, architecture, Hezekiah's Tunnel, history, Holy Sepulchre, Ir David, itineraries, Jerusalem, Kotel, Mamluks, Stations of the Cross, Tayelet, Temple Mount
Monday, March 15th, 2010
The Columbarium Cave at Maresha
There are many sites in Israel that I still need to visit. Numerous places I’ve still not yet been to, and plenty of others that I haven’t seen in many, many years. So I can’t yet say what my “favorite” site in this country is.
However, there is one site that I’ve been to twice in the past year (once on a private tour, and then a couple of weeks ago with my course) that has quickly become one of my favorite sites. Beit Guvrin-Maresha is a great site to visit for so many reasons.
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Posted in Primers, Tour Diary, Tour Guide Course, Uncategorized | 7 Responses »
Tags: archaeology, Beit Guvrin, Herod, Maresha, national park, tourism
Friday, February 19th, 2010
The beautiful Dead Sea oasis of Ein Gedi. (Seen from Nahal Arugot.)
(Catching up on writing about the siyurim/tours we’ve had so far, this one is from a little over a month ago.)
When most people think of Ein Gedi, they think of a beautiful oasis sandwiched between the cliffs at the end of the Judean Desert and the highly saline Dead Sea, the lowest place on Earth at 422 meters (1385 feet) below sea level. Popular images that spring to mind related to this oasis include gorgeous waterfalls, colorful flowers and delicate ibex bounding along sharp cliffs. Others might think of the date crops that were so closely connected with this area.
But what is somewhat less prominent, but still highly significant, is the wealth of interesting (and at times perplexing) archaeological finds within the Ein Gedi area. I wanted to highlight a couple of the archaeological sites that you might want to see on your next trip to the Ein Gedi park.
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Posted in Tour Diary, Tour Guide Course | 2 Responses »
Tags: archaeology, Ein Gedi, fortress, synagogue
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
A piece of the wall that surrounded Jerusalem in the time of King Hezekiah.
Our siyur (tour) this past Tuesday started in my backyard, almost literally. We met at the Tayelet / Haas Promenade, a mere 5-minute walk from my apartment in beautiful Arnona, Jerusalem. This scenic outlook offers an excellent spot to view the geography of ancient Jerusalem. From there, we went to a semi-hidden and little known spot called Ketef Hinnom (Shoulder of Hinnom, a valley in Jerusalem), then hiked through Gei Ben-Hinnom / the Hinnom Valley, and came out at the bottom of Ir David / City of David. We spent the rest of the day winding our way up, down and back up again inside this complex and interesting archaeological site.
I am not going to go into too much detail about Ir David, especially since I already discussed it a bit in this post here, but I did want to discuss a few interesting points from throughout the day. I also want to discuss two recent news stories that relate to things we learned about.
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Tags: archaeology, David, gravesite, Ir David, Jerusalem, Ketef Hinnom, Tayelet, Tel Aviv, writing
Friday, December 25th, 2009
Overlooking the Shefela (Lowlands) from Beit Meir on a cloudy day.
We had our first siyur (tour) this past Tuesday. Entitled “In the Footsteps of David and Shimshon (Samson),” it really encompassed a few different subjects that all related to the area around the city of Beit Shemesh. We also spent some time at the beginning of the day in moshav Beit Meir, at the very end tip of one of the ridges of the Judean Hills. This gave us the chance to get a good overview of the geography of the land (though it would have been a much better view if the day was sunnier, rather than alternately cloudy and rainy, with only brief respites of sunshine).
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Posted in Tour Diary, Tour Guide Course | No Responses »
Tags: Beit Shemesh, Dan, geography, gravesite, kever, Manoach, Samson, Shefelah
