Holy Land Pilgrimage Days 1 – 2, June 1, 2023

I changed my mind from what I wrote in the previous post, and decided to write about our Israel trip. It’s been a couple of months now, but it was such a memorable trip. Mary Ann and I keep talking about it, and trying to remember things, and going back to the photos to refresh our memories. We did so much and went to so many places that it was overwhelming to keep track of them all. So, we decided that since we had all the cell phone photos, we would like to use them to document our trip, to help retain our memory of it. It wasn’t a photography trip, so the photos in the post are cell phone photos, quickly snapped, just to record the event or place.

This first post will provide an introduction, an updated map of where we went, and then cover Day 1 and Day 2. I decided to include two days since we didn’t do much on Day 1. There is more information about the trip on the previous post (i.e. who we went with, who led the trip, etc).

Here’s a list of links to all the posts for our Holy Land Pilgrimage (including this post):

• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 9-10 and Epilogue, Saturday June 9-10, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 8 Part 2, Thursday June 8, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 8 Part 1, Thursday June 8, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 7, Wednesday June 7, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 6 Part 2, Tuesday June 6, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 6 Part 1, Tuesday June 6, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 5, Monday June 5, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 4, Sunday June 4
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 3, Saturday June 3, 2023
• Holy Land Pilgrimage Days 1 – 2, June 1, 2023

Introduction to our trip:

Mary Ann and I are taking a bible study class taught by Kevin Saunders with the Arizona Bible Class (ABC). Kevin was the leader of our Holy Land tour, and taught from the bible at the different sites we visited. In addition to Kevin, we had a guide named Ikey Korin. Ikey was excellent. He was very knowledgeable on all different aspects of Israel: history, geography, geology, flora and fauna, the bible, the Jewish faith and traditions (he is Jewish), the Christian faith. It was hard to keep up with him sometimes! Our bus driver was Yunus. Yunus was the unheralded hero of the trip; his ability to maneuver the large bus in tight spots and through heavy traffic on narrow streets was amazing. Kevin used a travel agency called Devotion Travel to handle the details of the trip.

There were 32 people on our tour, mostly from Catholic churches in the Phoenix area, but also from other denominations. It was a great group. I will include a group picture in my last post (Day 10).

Map of our Israel trip:

I have a map of the trip on the previous post, but that was before we went, and our itinerary changed while we were on the trip. This section has an updated map. As before, you can use the icon in the upper left of the map to select which days you want to view. Each day has locations we went to, and directions, and you can select which you want to view. The teardrop shaped icon is the location. If you click on it you’ll see information about the location; where applicable, I copied text from the travel brochure in the location information. The circular icon with the letter in it is put there by the driving instructions, and shows order we went to the locations. There are two ways to view the maps: via a link to the google site, or embedded on this website.

Here are the google links:

Day 1 – Day 5 map: Google map link is here.

Day 6 – Day 9 map: Google map link is here.

Here are the maps embedded on this website:

Rating of the different sites:

Our Israel tour leader and bible teacher, Kevin Saunders, rated the different sites we visited with an A, B, and C ranking system.

A sites: This is ‘absolutely’ where the event occurred. It is confirmed via historical records and/or archeology.

B sites: This is ‘basically’ where the event occurred. It was likely in the general vicinity.

C sites: The event is remembered at this site, but most likely didn’t occur here. There are various reasons for this e.g. the real site wasn’t known; the real site couldn’t be accessed; historical errors; etc. These sites capture the spirit of the event, if not the actual location.

Day 1, Thursday, June 1:

This was a travel day, with a stop in Caesarea Maritima, Israel.

We left on Wednesday, May 31 at 6:00 AM and arrived in Newark at 2:00 PM (4hr 49min flight). We departed Newark at 4:30 PM and arrived in Tel Aviv Israel on Thursday, June 1 at 9:55 AM (10.5 hour flight). We headed from Tel Aviv to our hotel at Migdal, and stopped for a tour of Caesarea Maritima along the way.

Caesarea Maritima was a port city built by Herod the Great between 22 and 10 BC. It sits on the Mediterranean Sea. The famous aqueducts into the city were built at the time of the apostles. This is the city where St. Paul was imprisoned for two years before being taken to Rome to be martyred. It is where St. Paul converted Cornelius the centurion and his family. Kevin taught about this from Acts 10:24. This is an ‘A’ site.

Next we drove to our lodgings in Migdal called the Magdala Hotel. The hotel was excellent. The location was awesome, right on the Sea of Galilee and at the base of Mt. Arbel. The breakfast and dinner buffets were huge incredible spreads, and included a wide variety of Mediterranean foods – meats, fish, breads, hummus, baba ganoush, tasty desserts. There is an excavation of a synagogue at the hotel, and a Catholic church called Duc in Altum (Latin for “put out into the deep”) built over the excavation. The altar in the church is unique, in the shape of a boat, with large windows behind it facing the Sea of Galilee. The hotel was built by a Catholic group, and a Catholic priest lives there full time, and offers Mass daily. Fr. Eamon Kelly spent time with our group, describing the church and the excavations, and giving us a tour of the synagogue excavations on the site.

You can find more information about the hotel here.

The fishing village of Magdala was the home town of Mary Magdalene and was the most important settlement on the Sea of Galilee’s western shore until Tiberius was established in the first century AD. Excavations have uncovered a rare synagogue that was in use here during the time of Jesus.

Day 2, Friday, June 2:

Our first stop on day 2 was the Church of the Beatitudes. Kevin taught from Matthew 5:1-13. This is a ‘B’ site.

Next we went to the city of Capernaum. This is among the most memorable sites in Israel for Christians, because Jesus established his base here for 3 years, and recruited some of his apostles here. It is the site of the House of St. Peter, the ruins of an actual home where Jesus is believed to have lodged. The ancient synagogue was right across from St. Peter’s house. Jesus delivered His ‘Bread of Life’ sermon there. There is a modern Franciscan Church at the site sitting on top of the excavations, kind of like a space ship landed there 😊. You can see a view of the site that gives a larger context, showing the Church, synagogue, and monastery in one view, here.

Kevin taught from Luke 5 here. He said it is an ‘AAA’ site!

Then we traveled to Tabgha, the site of the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fish. This church commemorates the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000. The church has beautiful, ancient mosaic floors. While we were there, they were working on restoring portions of the mosaic.

Our next stop was the Jesus Boat. We watched a movie there about when and where the boat was found, and how it was restored. The boat was dated to the time of Jesus. It was found in the water in the Sea of Galilee, and restoring the waterlogged timber of the boat was a unique challenge.

From there we went back to Tabgha (not sure why we left and went back!) to the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter. This where Jesus ate with the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection. Jesus took Peter aside and asked him three times if he loved Him, and Jesus told Peter “feed my sheep”. Peter was reinstated as the leader of the Church. Kevin taught from John 21. This is a ‘B’ site.

Here are the pictures. The captions with the pictures identify the different locations.