Eilat is a strange city. There is the eastern half with residential areas and industrial zones, and the western half with most of the big hotels, the marina, and the beaches. They are divided by the airport runway, making it awkward to go from one side to the other. The arrangement also means that all…

The big thing at Eilat, besides buying tawdry souvenirs, is diving. One dive yesterday and three today. They have sunk an old missile command ship of the Israeli navy, which is now sitting on the seafloor at 25m. The sea is very clear and visibility is excellent, so one gets a good sense of the…

It’s over 200km from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, 400m higher, through the Negev desert. For Israel, that’s a long distance. The bus was packed and I sat next to a soldier who I hope had his machine gun set on safety. Israel only has a few kilometers of coastline at the Red…

Ein Bokek is the main Dead Sea resort. It consists of a dozen nondescript concrete hotel towers, lots of parking, two malls of the kind they were razing first when East Germany joined the west, lots of ailing palm trees, and gigantic construction sites that were blocking more than half the beaches. Ein Bokek has…

The Dead Sea is a short bus ride east of Jerusalem. The scenery become4s very arid quickly, with only rocks and a few shrubs visible as we got closer to the sea. The elevation kept falling slowly until we were 340 meters below sea level. We kept passing through desert until the Oasis of Ein…

Jerusalem has a large number of attractions, most of which involve Jesus, and the bad time he was having at the end. I saw the place where he had his last supper, was betrayed and arrested, where he stumbled and held his hand to the wall (now a deeply worn stone because everyone puts their…

The third-party Bloggeroid app works! Here are the Akko pictures.… Read the rest

… Read the rest