After the 6-Day War in 1967, Israel conquered the part of Syria known as the Golan Heights. There are even remnants of tanks still scattered alongside the road... to make sure people remember their history.
We spent a few days driving through and checking out the sites in this region. The drive was so scenic and a complete contrast to the dry, lifeless Negev Desert. The land is very fertile and lush... perfect for growing food and making delicious wine!
Our first stop was the Church of the Beatitude. This, supposedly, is the site where Jesus delivered the Sermon Of The Mount. Now the site is a tourist attraction with a church and a nice view of the Sea of Galilee (which is actually a fresh-water lake...).
From here we went near the Northern tip of Israel and visited the Nimrod Fortress, named after a brave biblical hunter who, according to legend, "could sit on the summit and reach out his hand to take water from the Banias stream...".
The fortress was built by the Muslim ruler, ElMalik El-Aziz Uthman (that is is short name... his long name takes a few lines, so we'll skip it), in the early 13th century. Since it's location is of strategic importance, controlling the City of Banias and important road to Damascus, the fortress has passed hands back and forth between the Muslims and the Crusaders.
We also decided to visit a small town called Amirim where everyone in the town is vegetarian. As we slowed to turn the corner and proceed up the hill, an older hitch-hiking couple approached the car and got in the back. They seemed really nice and it turned out that they were from Amirim, so we decided to give them a lift up the hill. To thank us, they invited us in for tea. They were really nice and had many interesting stories about Israel's history and their lives, so we stayed and chatted with them for a couple of hours before heading out to wander the town and see the view. We were planning to try out one of the vegetarian restaurants in the area but it was closed and showed no signs of opening anytime soon... so we returned to our hotel in Tiberias.
Just as we were about to leave the hotel for dinner, we heard the sudden sounds of missile sirens screaming out through the city. It lasted for several minutes and we looked at each other wondering if we should be doing something. We looked out the window and people didn't seem particularly alarmed... and the hotel seemed quiet as usual. We just shrugged it off and figured they must just be testing the alarms. As we went to find a restaurant, we noticed that everything was closed... restaurants, shopw, grocery stores, etc.. Odd since it wasn't late and it was Sunday, which, by the way, is actually considered a week-day in Israel (their weekends are Friday and Saturday). Luckily, we managed to find one restaurant (just about to close) and managed to sneak in a take-out order. We asked why everything was closed so early and learned that it was a holiday called Holocaust Day... ahhh... hence the missile sirens, as a symbolic gesture of remembrance.
To end off our tour of the north, we also wandered through the old town in Nazareth, and lastly, checked out two wineries for a tasting (Rimon and Dalton). Rimon was the most interesting as their wines and ports are made from pomegranates instead of grapes. Surprisingly, the pomegranate taste was really subtle, but the port was really good so we had a bottle :).
