Israel diary - 6

1 Aug 01
I'm staying with a family in Hamadia (nr Beit Sh'an) at the moment. When I arrived I was greeted by six of Neomi's grantchildren (not all!), and only narrowly avoided being dragged into their dressing up games! Beit Sh'an is south of Ashdot Ya'akov by about 20km (1/2 hr). It's unusual in Israel in that the area doesn't have much of a water problem. This is because the area is well served by natural springs - both hot and cold (well, not so hot anyway).

2 Aug 01
I'm planning to head in to Beit Shan later today to check out some archeological type stuff (see links to the pictures at the bottom of the page).

Menachem and Neomi Zeira are wonderful hosts. Generous doesn't come close to describing them. When I arrived for example, Neomi offered me the use of an entire guest apartment rather than have me 'inconvenienced' by the chance of them waking me up in the morning. The thought was lovely, but the idea of Servas for me is to sample and share in family life, and besides, their spare room is more than adequate for me!

The archaeological site at Beit Sh'an is extremely interesting, no really, I have the photos to prove it! (see below). The site is a pleasing combination of tourist attraction and working site. There is enough information for even the completely uneducated (like me!), but not so much that it looks like a Disney Land reconstruction of a Byzantine town. There are more than enough rough edges and unrestored parts to convey an impression of how the place looked when it was first found by archaeologists. I do hope that they don't 'tastefully restore' (recreate) too much of the place and turn it into just another tourist park... Go see it before it's too late...

3 Aug 01
Today I traveled back up the Jordan valley east past Lake Kinneret into the Golan Heights and to Bnei Yehoda. Here I'm staying at the house of Israel & Naomi Kri-ze. Neomi gave me some herbal tea before I left - I'm not sure whether it's helped, but it tasted good!

overview

column detail beautiful work!

entrance

Hamadia

can't remember! take a look "The columns in the Photo you determimed "don't remember" is the "column boulevard" in ancient Bet shean reconstructions. when it was excavated the columns were lying on the street with all the heads to the north (the direction of the hill). they all fell at one moment in the earth quake in 749. the arceologists cosidered to leave the ruins as they found them in order to show the angle of the quake, but at last they decided to lift the columns up, as well as the whole city and leave the arches lying on the street. " - Menachem & Neomi Zeira

roman ruins (the rest are Byzantine)

theatre1

theatre 2

Different theatre notice the high walls - to seperate the animals from the spectators!

herbs for my tea

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The next installment.