Day 1: October 12, Nazareth

Anita at Fauzi Azar

We arrived in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel, early this afternoon by cab from Ben Gurion International Airport. We had arranged for a taxi as it is Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, and almost all public transportation is closed. The taxi was  a two hour ride and cost us 600 NIS (shekels) or $180. After a long international flight it was more than worth it to see Mazen standing by the arrivals gate with our names on a big sign and his cab a few feet outside the door.  It was a nice  drive through the countryside, the highway was very quiet - again because it is Shabbat. Mazen dropped us off in the Old City of Nazareth at an alley too narrow for vehicles. We quickly found our accommodation, the Fauzi Azar Inn, a 200 year old Arab mansion that has been turned into an inn. We entered the stone courtyard through a door about 5 feet high and then up a steep stone staircase to reception and down a winding hall to our twin room.

 

Basilica of Annunciation

After checking in we headed off through the souk, or market, to find the start of the Jesus trail, the Basilica of the Annunciation, a few hundred meters away. And so, we officially started our walk.  










All is well except we learned that blogging will be a bit of a problem as our blogspot.ca has become blogspot.il, the screen commands are all in Hebrew, and the typing is right to left. We will have to wait until we are home to fix all the punctuation and other errors.