Flower on the Tel

Tel, vineyards, olive groves

Sabbath Market

Mint Tea and Iced Coffee

Fishing

Sunset over the Mediterranean

Day 6 Friday

We started the day in the Ancient World and ended the day at the Jersey Shore… almost!

On the way to Tel Aviv, we stopped at the Tel, Lachish. One of the valuable things we did to prepare for this trip was to read Mitchener’s The Source. A fictitious novel of an archaeological dig of a tel in Northern Israel. Today, we were seeing our first tel. And it was so very interesting to walk up the tel, see some of the archaeological work, and look out at the fields and olive groves beyond. It felt like walking into the novel! But the most interesting part of this stop was looking at the maps and talking about the Assyrian conquest methods, their brutal treatment of their captives … hanging them by giant fishhooks and parading them around the walls … fishing for men! What a different meaning that Jesus brought to fishing for men … to release them from captivity!

Then, it was on to the seaside area of Tel Aviv, the vacation in the midst of our journey. We had such a special time in Tel Aviv, a very very modern western city! First thing we did was grab a taxi bus down to the Sabbath Market. One street was an exaggerated “Rices” at its most busy because everyone was shopping to prepare for Sabbath…anything and everything…let me make you a deal! The next street over was a craft market where we purchased many of our souvenirs, Then time to just sit and sip my mint tea and enjoy the atmosphere. A casualty of this trip is a new found addiction to mint anything!

Back to home base at the Dizengoff Beach Apts. to walk a bit of the Tel Aviv Boardwalk. To watch the fisherman fish, the families stroll and ride the carousel, and the sun set over the Mediterranean.

Shalom!