What comes to your mind when you think of the following words: falafel, crusades, ancient, turmoils, mazheltov? That’s right – Israel! I’ve had a chance to visit Israel recently; and while I was there, why not visit Jordan too? Jordan shares a cultural and historical significance with Israel, is just 5 hours away from it, is sunny and has a small, but beautiful shoreline on Red Sea – sold! Israel charmed me with its long history, hospitality and spirit. Every single stone and cornen is Israel is considered significant and holy. Tel Aviv reminded me very much of Belgrade; grey, dirty and not so beautiful, but with an amazing nightlife and wonderful Old Town named Jaffa, full of small, peaceful streets you can get lost in. Tel Aviv has one public beach, but it is so windy that anything else but surfing is impossible.
Jerusalem was really something; it trully deserves the crown of the Holy City. The most significant places for all three religions are there; christians, muslims and Jewish people co-exist in the same place, divided by quarters. Everything is so crazy and mixed up; muslims are selling crosses and icons in the christian quarter, we even managed to find a book about history of Jerusalem translated to Serbian – everything is in chaos, but it functions that way! Yad Vashem was not far away, so we visited it – it’s the largest holocaust memorial in the whole world. We had 1.5h to wander around and read articles, watch movies and see artefacts donated by the survivors – and I spent nearly half an hour reading only the part about Hitler’s rise! It is impossible to read and look everything thoroughly without spending 3 or 4 hours there. Truly impressive.
However, among the many things we saw on our tour – tha palace of King Herod, Capernaum (the birthplace of St.Peter), Nazareth (where Jesus grew up), Tabha (where Jesus performed his miracle of multiplying the bread), Galilean Sea (where we tried the famous St.Peter’s fish, a kind of fish which lives only in this sea and nowhere else in the world) and Acre (now a muslim town but once known for crusaders who lived there), we couldn’t by any chance miss making the most touristic photo – lying in the Dead Sea reading newspapers! It was a remarkable experience, literally sitting in the water, being unable to sink. The water is so salty it cures any open wounds almost immidiately; it also means you can’t spend more than 20 minutes in it and that you must avoid any face-to-face contact with the water.
Israel & Jordan