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I thought it might be great to finish up my post about my trip to Israel… been busy with work, but I’ll find a time to write about part II of my trip.  At any rate, my first post described Day 1 and 2 of my trip to Israel.  In particular, the post contains a useful map of the sites that Shawn Lankton and myself visited during our stay.  So lets just jump right into the continuation beginning with Day 3!

Day 3:

After giving our lecture on computer vision, Shawn and I began the actual site seeing.  At this point of the journey, we learned early on that the sun rose early about 5:30 AM, and that unlike back at home, we couldn’t do much touring around after 6:00 PM.  Of course, being graduate students, getting up early was no problem!  At any rate, we woke up at the crack of dawn and jumped into our rental car.  We headed up north to Rosh HaNikra, which is labeled C on the map in my previous post.

The drive up to Rosh HaNikra was great since it border the Mediterranean Sea.  In particular, we heard from a friend that it was a great site since the location has been not only a pivotal point communication and travel in recent history, but its significance can date back to Roman times.  Here’s a few pictures of the Mediterranean Sea, the Grottoes, and the border crossing between Lebanon and Israel at Rosh HaNikra.

In recent times, Rosh HaNikra had been used in World War II as a railroad station so that supplies could be easily transferred without having to go through the rugged mountainous terrain.  Unfortunately, as the war came to a close, tensions began to arise between Lebanon and Israel.  During the war of indepedence, Israel feared that Lebanon would use Rosh HaNikra as a junction to sneak troops into the country.  This lead to severing and blockcading the tunnel between the two countries and has been closed since then.  However, even before these times, Rosh HaNikra was used by the Romans to also transport supplies and the Grottoes shown above give tourists like us an amazing view of nature evolving at its finest.

Leaving Rosh HaNikra, we started to travel towards the historic city of Safed (Tsfat) now known for its Hasidic Jewish population as well as a central point for Kaballah..  For Shawn and I, we also had a personal interest in this city as it is not only where our advisor Allen Tannenbaum’s family is from, but its the name of our server here at Georgia Tech!  This is labeled as D on the map.  The city itself is not a very big tourist attraction unless you are concerned with Kaballah, but it does have a very historic feel to it. In fact, Shawn and I felt very much an outsider as most of the population of Safed are Hasidic Jews and we were arriving on Friday (the day before the Sabbath).  Nevertheless, the city had a very pleaseant and calm vibe, just don’t expect many people partying!

After eating lunch at Safed, we began our winding journey towards the tallest mountain in Israel, Mount Khermon.  This is labeled as E on the map.  Interestingly, this region of Israel, which is located right by Syria, is not recognized by the United Nations as apart of Israel. However, it is controlled by Israel and you will find Israeli troops and checkpoints near the mountain.  But before we reached Mt. Khermon, Shawn and I made the first driving mistsake of our trip as we missed a sharp turn to the mountain and ended up in a settlement called the Majdal al-Shams.  Luckily, a point of advice, when you get lost, always retrace your footsteps!  As we were leaving Majdal al-Shams, we met up with a local coffee shop owner who gave us directions to Mt. Khermon as well as free coffee and tea.  He also gave us a brief insight into the culture and everyday life, which is something that you definitely wouldn’t get on a tour.  Anyhow, here’s a few pictures of our drive up to Mt. Khermon, Shawn posing in front of the Ski office (it snowed the week before), and the mountain itself.  Note, on the otherside of the moutain is Syria and people are not allowed on the top of the mountainside since there are still some land mines.

At this point of the day, we realized that we only had about an hour or so before the sunset so we decided to quickly drive down to the Sea of Galilee and Tiberus to catch the view.  This is labeled F on the map and here are a few pictures of the historic biblical sea and city.

In fact, it was interesting to see that such a city that had such a significance impact on human history (as with the rest of Israel and the Middle East) had been turned into a tourist attraction.  While we did not see the city during the day, most of the people and natives said that the city of Tiberus was great for shopping and eating.  My particular take on the city was that the boardwalk on which we ate dinner was not nearly enticing as Haifa.  In fact, aside from the cool sunset view of Sea of Galilee, I would not recommend hanging out in the city for more than a few hours if that.  At any rate, we left the city when it was pitched black and headed back to Haifa to end Day 3.  The next post and final post will cover my visit to Jerusalem and our early morning hike up Masada to watch the sunrise.