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Writer's picturedanaevankaplan

One Day in the Wet Heat of Tiberias

On Sunday, I left James and his family and the kibbutz and took a local bus to Tiberias which took about a half an hour. I had been planning to book an Airbnb but I never finalized the reservation. So I arrived at the bus station without any firm plans on where to stay. To my surprise the airbnbs that I had looked at were no longer available or maybe they don't let you book the same day.


So I looked on the Google Map and I saw that about 15 minutes away by walking they were a whole bunch of hotels were right next to the ocean. So I took my large suitcase and my carry-on and my knapsack and I started walking. It's a small City with lots of people walking around and I found that very enjoyable. But after about 60 seconds I stopped and I realized that my body was completely soaked in sweat. It was about a hundred degrees which is nothing compared to Arizona but now I realize that there is a very significant difference between wet heat and dry heat. When anyone in Arizona complains about the temperature reaching 116 or 118° Fahrenheit, the response is usually "but it's dry heat!" now I understand what they are talking about!


I found the first hotel in a long row of hotels and the woman at the reception desk was extremely nice so I took a quick look at the room and then booked it. It was just a little bit more than $80 a night no breakfast included. The rooms were small but newish. I heard how the hotel had been completely booked until recently with two groups of evacuees one from the north and one from the south. But now the ones from the South had been sent home so there was only the group from Kirivat Shimona.


I spent most of the afternoon and evening just walking around. They have a nice Boardwalk and there was various ruins. I had heard there might be some Crusader ruins but nobody I asked knew what was what- Crusader, Turkish, Arab, even ancient Israelite. There were signs on some of the Antiquities but they weren't terribly helpful in either Hebrew or English.


At night, I chatted with the night receptionist who was also extremely friendly and had a lot of interesting things to say. Then in the morning I walked back to the bus station and took a bus to Tel Aviv and spent my last two days at the Tel Aviv Hilton. It was a major upgrade but I probably learned more about Israel from staying in the simpler Hotel in Tiberias.







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