Wed 20 December 2006   (Chanukkah V)

My first scheduled destination was Caesarea national park (50 km north of Tel Aviv), which opens at 8 o’clock in the morning. I left Tel Aviv at 6:45, and arrived in Caesarea at 8:15, nearly perfectly in schedule. I spent one hour in the national park, taking photos of the ancient ruins and wondering who the idiot has authorized building a massive coal power station next to one of the major historical sites of the country.

At 9:15 o’clock I continued driving north, ate lunch at Lev ha Mifraz shopping mall in Haifa, and arrived in Acco at 11:30. The pedestrian Old City of Acco is not large, but the road signs are scarce and obscure enough to create the impression of a medieval French labyrinth garden: “Try to guess where to turn next, to reach your destination or to find your way out of here!” A few more traffic signs would do no harm — this is generally true for all cities in Israel.

A 15-minute drive towards north brought me to Roosh ha Niqraa, which is at the border of Lebanon on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. I visited the grottoes by cable car, but the place impressed me less than I had expected, during the 45 minutes that I invested into this tourist attraction. Witnessing the Orient Express train go through the tunnel, on its way from Cairo to Europe, would have inspired a bit more sentimentality than what was now available there — but the railway bridge was blown up in 1948.

At 13:30 I continued driving towards east on highway 899 near the border of Lebanon. I stopped at the hill of Hanitah to take a panorama photo of the fine view towards south, and then I continued further towards east, taking these photos in Adamit and other places near the border of Lebanon.

While driving along highway 899 towards east, the wheels of the car started to make a strange noise, roaring like an aeroplane. I feared that the car might break down at any moment, so I dismissed my original plan to drive south to Nazareth via Ma’alot, and instead I took the shortest route to Tiberias, where I would sleep the next night anyway, having reserved a room in Prima Hotel.

The roaring noise ended after a few kilometers, but then it came back, and then it disappeared again. Finally I learned that the noise was caused by a certain type of asphalt pavement, and there was nothing wrong with the car. But I had passed the junction of Ma’alot long ago, so I followed the renewed plan and drove towards Tiberias, arriving at Lake Kinneret a few minutes before 16:00. A road sign pointing to Capernaum caught my attention here, and I spent the next half an hour among the most humble ruins of this ancient home town of Jesus of Nazareth. (I wonder who is interested in demolished houses anyway? Most visitors cannot get the faintest idea of what the place has once looked like. Carefully planned restoration of the ruins would serve the public much better than a few authentic stones kicked here and there.)

The sun was supposed to set at 16:30, but it became dark only half an hour later. I spent the evening in the center of Tiberias, mostly eating and surfing on the Internet, but also discussing with some local people about environmental terrorism, outrageous sound pollution, and a few disco boats sailing on the lake.

The trip meter of the car showed 330 km (of which 290 km today), as I parked on the street in front of Prima Hotel.