We skirted around "Area A", the Palestinian area, since if we wanted to visit we would have to park the car and take a bus into Jericho. We were stopped at a checkpoint on the road to Beit She'an and our passports checked again. They are always very cheerful and seem happy to see that we are Australians, the kangaroo has a lot to answer for. The landscape started to change and we drove through some green valleys which was nice to see because most of what we had seen so far made us wonder why anyone would think that this desolate landscape was a desirable place to live. There were also huge areas of solar panels.
Beit She'an is a national park but not in the nature sense, it is the remains of a Roman city and one of the better ones we have seen as some areas like the amphitheater have been restored well and in other areas you can see the collapsed columns from an earthquake. Once again it was very hot with little shade.
We drove onto Nazareth to visit the Church of the Annunciation which is feted as being built on top of the grotto where Mary was visited by Gabriel who told her she would conceive the Son of God. We arrived at the gate for K to be told that her shorts were too short so she was not allowed to enter. At least at mosques they give you something to wear, here we had to go to a stall to buy a shawl. The grounds and church were decorated with mosaics gifted by many countries including Australia.
Nazareth was very busy with lots of traffic and we were pleased to drive on to our final stop for the night at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. We had read that Tiberias wasn't much of a city so we didn't have any expectations so we were pleasantly surprised to find it had a nice boardwalk with restaurants on the waters edge.
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