Aimee's dad, Dave, was in Israel for 3 months on sabbatical at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, and her brother Art has been living on a kibbutz with his fiance Luda for 5 months. We were able to take a trip over there with Lucy, complements of Dave's frequent flier miles, for a 10-day vacation.
We saw some awesome stuff while we were there. We scuba dove and snorkeled in the Red Sea from Eilat. One of the days was at a dolphin reserve, so we were underwater with the dolphins. It was fun watching and hearing them swim by playing. The clicks and squeaks were very loud.
We took a day trip across to Petra, in Jordan. That's where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed, where they found the Holy Grail. We hiked about 1 1/2 hours down and up a canyon, seeing tombs and carved idols along the way. At the bottom, there were the most impressive structures, all carved into the rock. The Treasury (pictured) was believed for a long time to house treasure, but it turns out there isn't any there. Along with that, there is an amphitheater, some palaces, some more modest homes, and many tombs.
We drove back north toward Rehovot, stopping at Mt. Masada along the way for a brief stroll up the hill. It was supposed to take about 45 minutes, and didn't take much longer, but even starting at 10 A.M., it was extremely hot. There was practically no shade, and the heat just bounced off the rocks all around. At the top, we saw ruins from the settlement of Jews who were surrounded by Roman troops and committed suicide to avoid becoming slaves.
We had a couple days of rest at Rehovot, where we swam and walked around the Weizmann. We also spent a fun afternoon in the Garden of Science, where they have a lot of large science demos to teach some basic principles.
We had a full day guided tour of Jerusalem, which was fantastic. Everywhere you turn, you're looking at something historical. The current street level in many parts is 30 feet above what used to be the roads. Civilizations just keep building on top of whatever was there before. We took a couple tunnel tours: one of a water stream people used to have to walk through to get their water safely; the other of the Western Wall, most of which is under the Arab quarter.
After that, we had a day in the ports of Joffo and Caesaria. The latter is a big deep water port built by Herod, that has the most impressive ruins still standing that we've seen.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip!
