Lake Kinneret: The Mount of Beatitudes

The Church on the Mount of Beatitudes, North Israel.

In the warm afternoon sun, we reached the famous Lake Kinneret (Genezareth) on our road trip through all regions of Israel. It was already a little late, so we rushed to visit a few of the many holy places along the lake (which close before 17h). At the place of this church, Jesus is said to have given the blessings from the Bible (~therefore Mount of 'Blessedness' would also fit as description). Isn't it beautiful??! Many pilgrims visit this cloister every day.

A look in the garden around the church (yaay, palm trees^^).

~An exotic blossom~.

Great view over the Lake Kinneret^^. It is the fresh water lake, which is most below the mean sea level in the world. Many events in the Bible are connected to the Kinneret!!!

Lilly at the shore of the Kinneret (I am in the middle of a monk cloister there, so swimming is forbidden, lol. And I only took the shawl of my shoulders for a second to shoot the picture).

We drove to this beach and jumped into the lake. YR complained that a fish bit him, maybe that is a lucky sign? He told me: "Lilly, you have to be careful; this is fresh water, it doesn't have much buoyancy!"- I laughed at him an explained that this is the only type of lake we have in Germany =))). [In Israel, swimming in the Dead Sea and the Red Sea is fairly comfortable, because the high salt content keeps you at the surface).

Look at our poor sweetheart Galila! I totally used this situation, catched her and washed her ears (still wet, hehe). After that she looked too miserable for my initial mission to train her in swimming a bit. Instead, she was more interested in drinking the water from the lake (out of my hands of course, spoilt dog!). She looks really like a baby German shepherd dog, does she?

***

Only a few more weeks left in Israel. I feel very happy here, but I am also looking forward to go home and see my friends and family again. Hopefully they will still recognize me (tanned as I am, haha) *-*. Love,

Pik'In: Visit in a Druze Village

Arabic dessert: looks like coloured carpet and tastes sweet like the sin... =)

The Druze people are a minority in Israel, living in their own cities and villages in the north. Pik'In reminded me of an Italian mountain village. People were very friendly!

My friends and I were allowed to visit the first family of Pik'In during our road trip. This is how their living room looks like. (Yeah, that's Kennedy on that poster!). I bought a pair of green chandelier earrings from them =))).

We spent the night on this Israeli version of a camp site: an outdoor living room with carpets... XDD. There was no electricity and no warm water, so we had a fire in the evening and drank whine while looking into the stars.

This cute yard belongs to a wavery in Zafed, a city in the north, widely known for its popular art galleries and the ultraorthodox (strongly traditional Jewish) people living there.

*** Okay, now finally Galilas story :D ***

This is my friend HL, carrying around the newest travel group member: puppy dog Galila^^.
The night before, we were driving at a deserted mountain street and Galila directly ran in front of the car. HL stopped and little Galila was so miserable, that T. picked her up and we decided to leave her at the farm where we planned to spend the night.
Just that they did not want her! We gave her sugary water and she throw it all up again during the night. The next day we took her to see a vet (who also did not want to keep her). She said that the little one was just two months old back then! YR made the best name suggestion for her:

We named her after the region that we found her in: the mountains of Galilee (Galiläa). For the rest of the week-long travel, she was sitting in a small basket on the backseat and we would take turns to feed her and cuddle her. What a strenous travel for such a young dog! By this point, it was still not clear what would happen to her. She was like our baby and enjoyed the affection not only from us, but from random people in the street that stopped to pet her and love her. However, there is an happy ending for the abandoned puppy dog... HL and YR took Galila to live with them ( for happy ever after of course). Doesn't it sound like a true fairy-tale?!

Love,PS: Check out this turtle!! I was so excited that I jumped out of the driving car ("Lilly!!!")...

... More soon from the Holy Land ...

The Kingdom of the Lionfish

A pair of lionfish (Source).

WOW! That was a surprising encounter. After work I often take the time to go snorkeling over the coral reefs here. My wish to find a (rare) lionfish was finally fulfilled yesterday afternoon: I swam to my favourite place on the reef: a small cleaning station. Fishes of all sizes and colours swim there to have any parasites removed from their bodies by smaller cleaning fishes. So there is always a lot of action going on at this spot.

At first I wasn't sure and dived closer: But it was a beautiful lionfish for sure! After I caught my breath again, I went down more times and found out that he was not alone: He had the company of two other lionfishes! I was so excited that I swallowed a lot of sea water and had to force myself to breathe normally. They did not feel disturbed by me at all and I could take my time to look at them closely. I got so close that I could have touched them (which I did not of course). They are just as beautiful as I imagined them to be!

A white moray lurking under a coral-covered rock. (Source)

Another (at first frightening) encounter: I saw a long white moray eel moving over the sea floor (at least 1 m!), trying to hide himself in the cracks and crevices of the reef. Lucky me it wasn't a sea snake (lol).

A sea cucumber, surrounded by curious Anemone fishes. (Source)

And those creatures also are a little alien to me: Black holothurians (sea cucumber)! I dived very closely to them, but how can you guess that you deal with a living organism? They are not moving at all! And heaven they are big! I also saw anemonefishes, close to their host anemone (now everyone: "Neeemo!!"). Haha. More about my underwater adventures soon. :D
Love,