Departing from our usual approach to Slow a Travel, we decided on taking a few tours in Israel. As much as anything this was because we wanted to see as much as possible in the time we had – so not really Slow Travel at all!

Rather than catching the train between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem we used BeinHarim Tours to go to Bethlehem, thereby combining transit from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with sightseeing.

After stopping for a photo shot overlooking Jerusalem from Mount Scopus, we visited the cave where Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It was touristy but as my favourite person said, we are tourists too. Our Bethlehem visit was conducted by a local Palestinian,apparently the requirement placed on Israeli tour companies for visits to the West Bank. As we walked around,the town.we were bombarded by locals wanting to sell us “stuff”. I succumbed after a rather uncomfortable moment with a local, buying quite possibly the most expensive fridge magnets ever!

Visiting Bethlehem requires you to look past the modern buildings and try to visualise what the place looked like in the year zero.

As we were sitting on the bus headed to our Jerusalem base we decided on a day tour to Masada and the Dead Sea for the next day using the same tour company.

As much as I like sorting out our own sightseeing, there is something to be said for a hotel pick-up and someone else sorting out the navigation and sights. This is particular so in a place such as Israel where there are so many places of significance.

Our trip took us past iconic Christian sights. Where the Good Samaritan performed his deed of service. As we crossed the Jordon River, we saw in the distance where’s Jesus was baptised and then where Moses had died.

Out tour guide talked us through the conflicts and explained the origins of the kibbutz. He’d been brought up on a kibbutz and talked through why he and his mum had left. I’d been interested in kibbutz since my school days, the 1970s, when a fellow student told us of his year in a kibbutz on exchange. In those days I imagine the kibbutz was more of its pure form, a socialist collective, or as our guide put it communist, whereas today as our guide explained kibbutz are largely privatised.

He also talked us through compulsory military service for men and women – 3 years for men and 2 for women unless women wished to be combat trained and then their service period is 3 years as well.

We made a short stop at sea level before a decent to nearly 500 metres below sea level. I knew the Dead Sea was below sea level but there is somethimg different in being at sea level and then going further down in a bus not a submarine!

Our tour guide pointed out the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by Bedouin shepherds They were a relatively recent (1940s) and chance find.

All of the culturally significant locations were spellbinding, but the terrain was the showstopper for me on our trip to Masada. The desert was nothing like what we’d experienced before. For us a desert is red sand and this was nothing like that.

That and just across the Dead Sea was Jordan. So much packed in such a small space.

We were headed for Masada, a place I knew little about until my favourite person enlightened me. But before we arrived we had the obligatory stop to purchase from the locals, this time cosmetics from a world famous cosmetics company. As independent travellers this isn’t a stop we would have made, but that’s a necessary compromise in an organised tour.

Our next stop was Masada. Masada means fortress and as I said I knew almost nothing about it.

Masada was a court built for Herod the Great around 30 BC as a fortress in the event that he faced a revolt. Herod was not someone you wanted to be on the wrong side of.

It’s place in Jewish history comes, post Herod’s time, where it was the place of the last siege against the Romans by a group of rebel Jews. It ended in tragedy with the rebels choosing death at their own hand rather than slavery and other unspeakable acts at the hands of the Romans.

To get to Masada today, there is the option of the snake path, so named because of the way it snakes it’s way up the mountain, or a cable car. We took the cable car as the path was shut, not surprisingly as it was 40C plus.

Once at the top the buildings are visible as is the remarkable landscape. Our guide told us the story over an hour or so on the top of the mountain. The archeological site is fascinating including the Roman battalion locations still visible, the Roman ramp and siege wall. it was not difficult to visualise the scene at the time of the siege, the Jews held up in Masada and the Romans below making preparations to overtake the town.

 

Such an incredible place and story.

But there was still more to our day. A visit to the Dead Sea. I had never imagined visiting this place and here I was just an hour or so from swimming in the Dead Sea. I was just a bit excited.

We arrived late afternoon and the temperature was 43C. I changed and walked down to the beach. I took my shoes off. Bad move the clay beach was so hot. I made a quick dash for the shore and into the water. It was incredible. Muddy and slippery under foot, warm water and then the salt. You can’t sink. Lying on your back is the only way to have any control in the water as the buoyancy caused by the water makes moving harder than you’d think. I accidentally got a splash of the water in my mouth – it was more salty than anything I’d ever tasted. I had a cut on my finger and it stung for a short period and was healed in the water. I am not sure however that I looked younger when I got out of the water.

 

It was amazing!

We had time for a drink in the lowest bar in the world before changing and heading back to the bus for the trip back to Jerusalem.

While it wasn’t Slow Travel, it was a day well spent. I’m not sold on tours but with limited time sometimes it’s an option worth considering.

One final comment. Our guide was fabulous and his reference to sentimental rocks rather than sediment in the rocks was a hoot!