The Sabbath dawned quiet in Tiberius. As advised one lift in the hotel would be a ‘sabbath lift’, meaning it did not require buttons pushed and would stop at every floor. As we are on level 12 it took a while to get down to the restaurant, back up to brush teeth, then down to…

As I begin to write this the appropriate greeting is ‘Shabbat Shalom’. Tiberius has suddenly grown quiet as Friday comes to an end, and the Sabbath or ‘Shabbat‘ begins. We have had a momentous day in north-west Galilee [map]. It was another hot day with 60 to 90 minute visits to various sites and activities,…

Day 5 took us to the site of Sepphoris or Zippori, a town the first century Jewish/Roman historian Josephus described as “The ornament of all Galilee” This romanised town had spring water and fertile lands enough to make it prosperous and important but its real interest to us is that it is in walking distance…

Day 4 saw us leave Jordan and enter Israel. We crossed at the Allenby Crossing over the Jordan and this was quite a process! It was not tense but very careful. As we passed through that crossing into Israel we were led in a meditation on a hymn many will know that begins: Guide me,…

Petra of the Nabateans is not mentioned directly by name in the Bible, but it was a neighbouring civilisation that flourished south of Judea. It was contemporary with Jesus and probably had trade links that connected with the land of Israel and the Roman world. In fact the Romans took it over a century after…

Francis and Barbara have the opportunity to fulfil a long held dream to visit the Holy Land.

This special blog post series, written by Francis, will document their journey through Jordan and Israel ending up, of course, in Jerusalem.