What a night!  Creaking floors, howling dogs, barking dogs, cold floor, minuscule shower that overflowed, a “thin person” toilet, and a doorway too low (Rob banged his head, and then spoken “fondly” to the door, as well as to his wife who enquired about his head),but it was an experience!  Waking up at 7h00, later than we have usually been doing, and also later than we hoped, we packed and squeezed our way out of Fauzi Azar, this after dodging a Brit who claimed to be born in SA who was doing her Tai Chi.

Dragging our bags through the streets (including up and down uneven stairs) we found our car and after loading up and a brief skirmish with another car going in the opposite direction in the narrow lane we got on to the main road through Nazareth.

Once on the main road we headed for Zippori. This is another ancient town;  this one’s claim to fame was that it was the capital of the Galilee during the time of Christ’s ministry Circa 30 CE. At the site (we were the first one there) we saw beautiful mosaics that had been removed and preserved and then replaced where they had been found. This process took about five years, and when you see the number of individual blocks of stone and the detail of the pictures they create you can understand why. Jen however felt that it was now fake because it was not exactly how it was found. … Rob tried to reason that it was better to preserve the artefacts even if it was not EXACTLY as found but ….. (outcome of this discussion still inconclusive!)  The main north-to-south Cardo (name for a Roman city’s main street), was well preserved and included wheel ruts caused by wagons travelling up and down the road. As at many of the sites of that time, a synagogue was also excavated, and this too had some amazing mosaics. The whole town is quite large and spread out so it was a long walk around.

Next we headed for Tel Megiddo, this meant some work for the navigator as there was no direct route to Megiddo from Zippori, but we managed to find the right road, albeit after a spirited “discussion” ….. the joys of travelling!  En route we stopped at a Paz / Yellow for something to eat. Paz is a petrol station chain and Yellow are shops that sells food and drinks.

At Tel Megiddo we stopped to look at some of the site we had seen before;  not before Jen spotted another “piece of bling” (Rob’s words) and we were relieved of a few more shekels.  Some parts of the site had been excavated more than they were in 2006 and we wonder what more will be discovered. The walk through the water tunnel was strange with just the two of us, since the last time we were part of a whole flock of sheep. The 600 metre walk back to our car help move some calories as the day was now starting to warm up after a cool start.

Finding our way onto the main North/South Highway, Route 6, we headed for Jerusalem. The route is a toll road, but with out toll booths.  Instead there are cameras that record the licence plate and then a bill is sent to the car owner (see “Driving in Israel” for more on this).  After navigating a few interchanges we came into the New City of Jerusalem proper.  We were excited to see, as we approached, a large 60^th anniversary motif on the side of the road.  Unfortunately the cameraman was driving and the navigator’s photographic skills are not her strong point!

We had a map to get us to the outskirts of Jerusalem, and a map of how to get to the place, Barkai Studio in Musrara, where we were staying, but we didn’t have one covering the city and outlying areas.  So we followed the signs that said “Old City”, since knew that Musrara was near the old city. Eventually we worked out that we were in Yemin Moshe, an area not too far away, so a quick correction and fast work by the navigator and we headed for Musrara. Rob had said he knew how to get to Barkai Studio but needed a lot of help to get to Musrara.  Finally finding the right road we reached the turquoise door and were met by Ruti, the owner.  She is a softly-spoken ceramicist who has her pottery studio in the garden.

Welcoming us and showing us the studio, it was exactly as we had expected having seen pictures on the internet.  This was unusual in itself, as places more often than not look better on their internet adverts (Fauzi Azar being a case in point).  After dumping our bags we walked the two minutes to the Old City and then to The Kotel. This for us seemed to be the real start to our trip to Israel – standing in front of the wall does really seem to be the centre of the world, in the place where so much with so much significance has happened.

Walking back to Jaffa Gate we had a meal at Samara, an Arab restaurant, as all the Jewish eating places had closed for Shabbat.  The food was more “western” than any of the other Arab restaurants so far; Jen had a tuna salad and Rob a turkey sandwich with chips (the “sandwich” is a pita bread).  We then went to buy some things for our stay; again the fun of shopping in a foreign country when the labels are just pretty pictures and you have to guess the contents.  Back at our studio we could finally unpack and sort our clothes. Jen had run out of clean cloths so needed to wash a few things, Rob just played with his toys … and updated the blog, and made Jen unpack his case whilst he was still “playing”.

More tomorrow …  Shabbat Shalom… Mini Israel & Latrun, Day 7