To Tiberias!!

After Caesarea, we drove to Tiberias, which is a city on the sea of Galilee.  In the Bible the Sea of Galilee is sometimes referred to as the Sea of Tiberias.  We stayed at the Gai Beach Hotel.

Here is the room.  Some of the channels on the TV were in English, but there were lots of other languages, too.  I think one channel was even in Russian!  So neat!

Here's another view.

Each evening we had dinner at the hotel.  There was always a great salad bar with a variety of vegetable delights.  Of course, I wanted to try as many of the options as possible. :)  I just love hummus, so I was quite pleased to see it on the buffet at every meal!  They also had roasted red pepper, beets, carrots, a cabbage salad and a plethora of other tasty treats.

Dessert was also delicious!  The dessert at the top of my plate had a delicate flaky crust and this was the only night they served it.  It was so thoughtful of the hotel to keep the dessert portions small, so we could try several!

Here are some friends on the journey:

Beverly and Petra

Ebony and Jackie

Blake, Leeann, Steve, Matt, Travis, and Shelby

Rosa, Brandy, and Kelli

It was such a joy to get to know so many friends on the trip.  I miss them so much!  Hope we can have a reunion get together soon!!! :)

Each night after dinner we would gather for a group meeting.  It was a great time to debrief from the day and share concerns for prayer with each other.  We would also discuss what the next day's agenda held for us.

Yes, this is the morning sunrise on the Sea of Galilee from the hotel window.  I was pinching myself to make sure this was real when I first saw it.

Here is another view of the Sea of Galilee from the window.

Here's the hotel pool with the Sea of Galilee just beyond.

The Galilee region is definitely beautiful!

Each morning, we would start of with breakfast at the hotel and then climb on the bus for another adventure.  The bread in Israel is so delicious and I loved having a little tomato and goat cheese, too, for breakfast.  My Grandaddy always liked sliced tomatoes for breakfast, so I couldn't help but think of him each morning.  Another thing about where we stayed was that all the meals were kosher.  It was neat to learn more about this specific way of eating.  In the mornings we would have butter with our bread because there was no meat being served, but in the evenings meat would be part of our meal, so there would be no butter.  A main truth for kosher eating is that dairy and meat are not mixed.  I learned so much!

Hope you have a wonderful Friday!!  We're headed to the Mount of the Beatitudes next! :)