Day 1- Saturday

I allowed Sara to sleep in a little bit before packing up and heading to Megiddo. There was only one other tourist there while we were there so we were able to enjoy the excavation site and ruins pretty much by ourselves. It was a great temperature outside with a nice breeze (better than when we were here last time). Sara found a lizard peacefully laying on a rock nearby and thought it would be fun to chase it my direction. Yikes! They scurry so fast! This was the biggest lizard I have seen yet… maybe 12 inches head to tail. We walked through the whole site and down the water cistern through the tunnel that led outside the city wall. After a short hike back to the car we decided to head to Nazareth for the rest of our afternoon.

Finding the old city was rather difficult since most of the signs were in Arabic, but we eventually found it. We visited the Basilica of the Annunciation which holds the ruins of an ancient house proposed to be Mary’s home where the angel announced to her that she would give birth to a son and will name him Jesus. When we got there, a service was currently being held so we tried not to be a distraction. Both Sara and I had tank tops and shorts on which is not considered appropriate attire so we had to borrow 2 pieces of cloth- one to wrap around our shoulders and the other around our waists. This was a good reminder for us to bring an extra set of clothes for the “sacred” sites that require you to follow a dress code. We walked through the market and on to “Mary’s Well” which supposedly used to have healing water in it (all gone now). On the ay back to the car we stopped by a bakery and tried a tasty treat. Not sure what was in the pastry… it was very sugary. We came home around 5pm and joined our neighbors (Bears) for dinner down at the beachfront. We had a really nice time and we were both ready for bed after a full day.