Israel, the birthplace and center of major world religions and the ancient crossroads of empires, dates back more than 8,000 years, and continues to be the center of political conflict as well as economic, financial, industrial, and cultural growth. With more than 7 million Jews in a geographically diverse crossroads between Asia, Europe, and Africa, Israel’s population and innovative wealth-creating inventions are growing enormously.
Planning
Our trip planning began six months in advance because our youngest child expressed interest in visiting family in Israel. Our strategy was to fly through Zurich to visit family and accustom ourselves to the 10 hour time shift. We planned to fly back through Zurich and spend more time visiting our Swiss relatives before flying home. There would be four to seven of us travelling on two to five separate reservations depending on the older three kids.Booking flights, hotels, car rental
Expedia proved as useful as the double-secret ninja travel agent deals for finding cheap non-stop flights. One trick that worked this time was to book separate tickets for each leg -- Seattle <-> Zurich and Zurich <-> Tel Aviv instead of putting all destinations on one ticket. Another was to watch the fares carefully and buy the tickets when they bottomed out. Flights within Europe (including Israel) are relatively cheap compared to US destinations. Avis has decent deals on cars but be careful about size and insurance. A Mazda-5 is the smallest vehicle that would fit five carry-on suitcases. Most of the hotels wanted dollars and cash but I expect that will change as the dollar continues to drop like a stone.If we had been clever (or had watched the US national debt) we would have purchased lots of Swiss Francs and Shekels as soon as we decided to travel. The dollar dropped over 30% and made everything very expensive. All credit card companies started charging a 14% “foreign transaction” fee to make up their losses from the class action law suits they lost for hiding these fees before. We applied for and received Capital One credit cards exclusively for this trip because (at the time we applied) Capital One was the only card that did not charge foreign transaction fees.
The Public Library augments the Internet
We went to the library and checked out all of the travel guide books for Israel then ended up buying Fodor’s Guide because we found it best for our purpose. We looked at home exchange programs and I asked around at work if anyone in Israel were interested in trading houses for the summer but the offers were either inconvenient geographically or for the wrong dates so we ended up booking apartments and hotels for the days we did not plan to crashed at relatives’ homes.What to see where and when?
We decided to start in the North of Israel to see Haifa, Naharia, the Galilee, Tiberius, the Golan, the Kinneret (sea of Galilee) and our relatives in that area. We booked an apartment in Caeserea near the beach for about a week and planned to make day trip excursions from our base there to visit the North. Our trip dates happily coincided with my cousins’ daughter’s Bat Mitzvah in Jerusalem so one of our “North” visit days was eaten by that wonderful event. We also planned to see Tel Aviv (in the middle of the country) from our Northern “base” during that week. Then we planned to drive South to Be’ersheba to visit my aunt and uncle and the cousins who live there, spend one night on the Israeli / Gaza / Egypt border at my cousins’ farm home that I love so much, and then drive down through Mitzpe Ramon to Eilat. From there our plan was to see the dead sea, Masada, Ein Gedi, and end our trip in Jerusalem at one or another of the cousins’ houses for our last four nights. Then we planned to go back to Zurich, wash our clothes, visit relatives, eat chocolate, and finally fly home.
Having had some recent, terrible experiences with lost checked luggage we decided to buy suit cases that were the maximum size of a carry-on, then stuff everything into them and check no bags at all. Our packing list included rainy-cool weather clothes for Zurich, snorkel gear, beach stuff, and clothing that met the “respectful” coverings required by the religious people in Jerusalem. And we took lots of electronics including phones, eBook readers (Nooks), laptops, cameras, movie camera, etc. I broke my ankle two days before departure and had to take both an inflatable cast (with hand pump) and an ankle brace. I packed way too many long pants and sweat shirts (note to self: next time, one each) and ended up not using the 1080p video camera (or its charger, lenses, cables) at all. Oldest Daughter joins us
Our adult daughter recently graduated college, after which she presented an academic paper in Southern California. She selected one of the job offers and arranged to start her job in August, giving herself a window of calendar time during our trip that enabled her to join us just after her conference. She met up with us in Herrliberg and stayed with us during the entire trip to Israel and Switzerland.
She is extremely well-read in history, archaeology, and the local religions and she enriched our experience enormously. Just as the docent or guide is the most important part of a tourist’s experience, so too having an expert in the car with you adds enormous depth to the experience. During her last trip to Israel, she participated on an archaeological dig in the North and her dig was on display in the Israel museum in Jerusalem! The display called the skeleton buried at the site a Shaman and speculated that the turtle shells were spiritual talismans. My daughter’s theory is that the skeleton was some old crazy cat lady who lived in a cave alone with her pet turtles.Maladies
Our youngest daughter had a bad cough for most of the trip and it spread to a few of us after a few weeks of close quarters. Our teenager son developed digestion problems, sleep issues, terrible headaches, and sudden high fever. Our adult 
daughter had some minor health issues and was first to be infected by the cough. I hobbled around painfully on the broken ankle and then developed diverticulosis, fever, and headaches and a cough of my own.Our flights to Zurich via SFO and then to Israel were blissfully uneventful. We had bulkhead seats for the longest transatlantic flight and I was able to keep my broken ankle elevated.
Sights
Caesarea
Caesarea includes some great beaches on the Mediterranean but the one closest to our hotel had jelly fish in June. The beach next to the ruined aqueduct was much better.
I am always blown away by how technologically advanced the Romans were. They brought water to Caesarea from Carmel, hundreds of Km away via aqueduct. They built a huge water break for the port using hydraulic concrete and made an amazing harbor. But we spent more time hanging out on the beach than visiting the sites. Photos are here, here, and here.
Akko
Akko is one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions in the Middle East. It was a strategic coastal link to the region. It is the holiest city of the Bahá'í religion.
It is the site of Richard the Lion Heart’s massacre (2,500 of Saladin’s men and civilians) during the second crusade. It is the site of numerous battles and it was destroyed or invaded almost as frequently as Jerusalem. Akko is the current site of the very best Humus in the world.We met Gil there after work while we were touring the old structures. Gil is very nice and it is wonderful spending time with him. More photos are here.
Haifa
I am not a big fan of the tourist sites in Haifa; it’s a big port town with lots of people. I have been to the Bahá'í gardens many times and consider them no great shakes.
We went to the maritime museum which I found to be a lot of fun; we were the only people in the museum the whole day. Eitana loved the girl pirate exhibit.
More photos of Haifa and the family are here.
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv is a very large city; most Israelis live or work there. We don’t like big cities and avoided Tel Aviv except to stop in at the “Land of Israel” museum (takes an entire day to see). We also stopped in to see relatives.Photos are here.
Beer Sheba
The largest city in the Negev, home to the most Chess grand masters of any
city in the world, site of the huge WWI battle between the Turks and the British as well as the bloodless 1948 surrender by Egyptian forces to the new-born Israeli defense forces, Beer Sheba is a big, ugly, smelly, traffic-filled, dirty sweltering city to be avoided. We went to visit my aunt and uncle and saw my cousin who lives near-by.Yevul
The commercial farming tour we had in Yevul made the entire trip to Israel worthwhile.
My father’s brother and his wife formed the first-ever cooperative community called a “moshav” in 1921. His youngest daughter helped create a moshav in Gaza in the 1980’s; after Israel unilaterally surrendered Gaza to terrorists in 2006, the government removed all Israelis; so my cousins moved their farming village to the Negev where they take sewage waste and hard work to create enormous wealth from the Negev desert. Israel recycles and uses over 85% of all sewage water (#1 country in the world). Yevul grows vegetables, flowers, spices, tomatoes, strawberries, and prickly pears (Sabra fruit) with very cool technology such that the plants ripen at exactly the opposite time of year as the plant would naturally mature (top prices) and with yields 2-3x of other commercial farms per acre per year.
We saw the site of the terrorist invasion into the Negev where they killed two Israelis and captured Gilad Shalit and we saw the Egyptian border where Bedouins graze their goats. Photos here.
Ein Avdat & Avdat
Right on the heels of our amazing tour of commercial farming in the Negev came a double-whammy that was much better than what we anticipated.
We stopped at the Ein Avdat canyon and the Avdat ruins on our way to Mitzpe Ramon. We had both sites completely to ourselves (no tourists anywhere) and tramped around exploring, reading, photographing, climbing, soaking in the site. Ein Avdat is a large canyon with a waterfall, very many animals, and some unexplored ruins. Avdat is an amazing archaeological site of a large roman city destroyed by an earthquake, built on an oasis that was the most important site on the “incense route” for seven hundred years. Photos here.
Mitzpe Ramon (Ramon Crater)
The best hotel of our trip to Israel was in Mitzpe Ramon (ramonhotel.com); it is right next to all of the local sites. Large, clean, well-appointed rooms with fast Internet and a great restaurant made our stay there very luxurious, relaxing, and fun.
It is impossible to capture in two dimensions the grandeur of the crater; it’s like the grand canyon. You must see it in 3-D. It’s big, deep and geologically weird. Photos here.
Eilat
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Eilat is Israel’s southern-most city and a big touristy Las Vegas-like town. We hit all of the big attractions including snorkeling in the coral and watching the sharks get fed in the huge aquarium complex. The water at the Red Sea beaches was nice and warm. I discommend our hotel, the Isrotel Riviera Club which was noisy, dirty, small. Photos and videos here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
Masada
What can I add to everything you’ve heard about Masada? It’s King Herod’s ancient, impregnable bolt hole palace (the name comes from מצוד or “fortress”). Masada is the site where ancient Jewish zealots held out against the Romans for over two years of siege and then committed mass suicide when the Romans, under continuous missile fire, moved 10,000 tons of stones and built a mountain ramp, 1800 m (6,000 feet) tall to siege and breach the fortress.
Shortly after the modern state of Israel was reconstituted, ending the diaspora the Romans had created, the Jewish Youth movement started popularizing the site among tourists and Jews as a kind of symbol of fierce Jewish nationalism. One of their members grew up and became chief of staff of the Israeli army (Moshe Dayan); he started the ritual of climbing the snake path before dawn, arriving at the fortress at dawn, and declaring, “Masada will not fall again” as part of their celebration that they completed basic training and as a swearing-in ceremony for the army. Jewish teenagers from all over the world also perform this spiritually powerful ritual as part of the Jewish “birth right” program to introduce these kids to their ancestral Jewish homeland. Since the last time I was there they have added a cool museum. More photos here.
Ein Gedi
Ein Gedi is an interesting source of water in the desert with waterfalls & lots of animals. It is mentioned frequently in the bible whose authors claim David hid there from Saul before he became King. (There is historical and archeological evidence that he hid among the Crete Philistines in Gaza, but who knows? The bible is often more accurate archeologically.) Anyway it’s quite odd to see such a green, lush area in the middle of the desert. We visited the local ancient temple as well where Jews secretly gathered during the time their religion was outlawed by the Romans. It was very hot while we were there so we stood under the waterfalls to get wet.Jerusalem
We ended our trip with a 3-day stay in Jerusalem at my cousin’s house in Tzur Hadassa. Jerusalem is the capital of the modern state of Israel. It was also the ancient capital of the united Jewish kingdom since King David 3,300 years ago. Despite the fact that the city was conquered, sacked, massacred, and destroyed 26 times, Jews have been the majority population in Jerusalem since King David’s time. Jerusalem is mentioned over 600 times in the Jewish bible and over 140 times in the Christian bible (but not once in the Koran).
Although we did not traipse through the new biblical water tunnels leading from the temple mount to the East, we did see almost all of the other museums and sights including the first temple site, the second temple (wailing wall), and old city stuff. My three favorite episodes of our visit are
- Yofiel’s lighting T’Filin at the second temple
- The scale model and movie describing the second temple
- The archeological museum along the South Western wall of the second temple (because of the tour on to which we latched).
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