ISRAEL 'LAND OF MILK & HONEY'

On arrival at Tel Aviv airport  you will be greeted and transferred to your hotel.  We will have a welcome dinner and get together in a local restaurant this evening.

We will depart by coach, after breakfast, for a scenic drive along the coast to the 2000 year old city of Ceasarea where we will see a wealth of ruins including the artificial harbour laid out by Herod.  From here we will drive to the seaport city of Haifa and enjoy views from the top of Mount Carmel before heading to Acre, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Here we will visit the Crusader Knights' Halls and explore the covered markets before driving to our hotel in Tiberias for the next 2 nights.  Dinner will be together this evening in a nearby restaurant.

On our excursion today we will discover Biblical history on a boat trip on the Sea of Galilee. We will stop at the synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus taught, and St. Peter's house which is now a church.  We will also see an ancient mosaic of the Loaves and Fishes in the Church of Multiplication and the Mount of Beatitudes, where Christ issued his famous Sermon on the Mount.  Our tour continues with a drive up the Golan Heights, overlooking upper Galilee, stopping to see some archeaological remains of this sacred place en-route. We then head back to our hotel in Tiberias.  Lunch will be included at a local restaurant today.

We depart for Jerusalem today, stopping en-route at Sephoris, once the centre of Jewish spiritual life with fascinating remains and mosaics.  Then onto Nazareth to see the Basilica of the Annunciation, built on the spot where the Archangel Gabriel is supposed to have informed the Virgin Mary that God has chosen her to bear his son. We will also visit Israel's best preserved ampitheatre in Beit Shean, before driving down the Jordan valley to Jerusalem and our hotel for the next 4 nights.  Dinner will be together this evening in a local restaurant.

Our first stop this morning is Yad Vashem, the Jewish people's memorial to the 6million lives lost in the Holocaust. We will visit the museum and take a walk along the Street of the Righteous.  Our tour continues past the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, then we will visit the Israel Museum containing the Shrine of the Book, home of the Dead Sea Scrolls. From here we drive to Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity which rests over the cave where Jesus was born, before returning to our hotel.  Lunch will be included today at a local restaurant.

First we will drive to the Mount of Olives to get some wonderful views over the city and, at the foot of the hill, the Garden of Gethsemane.  We make our way through Zion Gate towards the Jewish Quarter where we will see the ancient Roman road and restored synagogues and down the stone stairway to the Western Wall - the Kotel, where we will see many worshippers.  As we continue towards the Southern Wall we will pass through many historical places including the site of the Crucifixion and the Tomb of Christ.  We leave the Old City at Mount Zion and visit St. Peter in Gallicantu before heading back to the hotel.  The evening is at your leisure.

This morning we will drive along the Dead Sea to Masada where we will take a cable car to reach this last stronghold of the Zealots.  Many of its fortifications, originally built by Herod, still stand.  From here we will stop at Qumran Caves, located on the Dead Sea's northern shores, and the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  Many of the items discovered in these caves are now exhibited at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.  Weather permitting, there may be time to take a dip into the Dead Sea from a local beach.  Drive back to our hotel in Jerusalem.

This evening we will have a Farewell Dinner together in a local restaurant.

Sadly, time to say goodbye and head for the airport for your homeward journey.  Transfers will be arranged from the hotel to the airport.