13 May: Bet She'an, Nazareth and the Pope

Today I drove from Tiberias down to Bet She'an, Israel's most extensive archeological site which has ruins from Egyptian times, from the time of Israel's kings Saul (he was decapitated here and his body hung on the city wall), David and Salomon and from Roman times, with the best preserved and biggest Roman theatre of Israel (whatever this is worth.. ;-) )
On the way, I visited "Belvoir", a crusader fortress, with an amazing view over the Jordan-valley. This was the last fortress taken by Saladin in 1189, one and a half years after Jerusalem and all the other crusader cities surrendered.
I will not bore you with more details, it was basically a lot of old stones... ;-) nice old stones though... ;-)
In the early afternoon, I went on to Nazareth. The city was quite busy and there was already lots of police when I arrived. Nevertheless and without any map nor clear idea where my guesthouse was (I forgot to print the detailed description of their website...), I found my way and even a parking space right in front of it, in the middle of the old town. So far so good. When I started my walk around the city, I began however to realise that it was probably not a good idea to come here at the same time than the pope, who will arrive in Nazareth tomorrow morning. All the main churches (that he will visit), were closed for the preparations already at noon and will be closed the whole day tomorrow except for people with special accreditation. The old city is entirely blocked for traffic, it seems, although I got different kind of information on this depending on the policeman I talked to. I got however confirmation by several people on a possible way out from my guesthouse towards Tel Aviv. At some point I had considered leaving immediately this afternoon despite having already paid the guesthouse, as there was nothing to see anyway (I strolled through the old city already this afternoon...)... But then I thought it might still be interesting to see what will happen... there is a real Benedictus-hysteria here... everywhere in the streets, there are the yellow/white Vatican flags and posters with "welcome Pope Benedict XVI". During the afternoon, the streets filled more and more with police and military. In my guesthouse, I bumped into a team from German TV and radio (ARD / Bayrischer Rundfunk) who also stay here and actually set up a mini television and radio studio in their appartment. They also gave me the detailed programme of the Pope's visit and so I finally know what will happen tomorrow. The Pope will fly into town from Jerusalem by helicopter and will arrive at 08h30. He will hold a mass in a stadion built (it seems) specially for this occasion and which seems to have a capacity of 40.000 (!!!!) people, at least that is whatlocal people say. I wonder however whether this will fill up becasue in Jerusalem and Bethlehem there were never more than 5.000, according to the news I read on the internet. He will have some bilateral meetings and then at 12h30 he will come to the Basilica of Annunciation (built on the spot where Archangel Gabriel announced to Mary the birth of Jesus), which he will visit and where he will hold another mass with a selected 2.000 people "only". At 15h50 he will meet Prime Minister Netanjahu and around 18h00 he will fly back to Jerusalem by helicopter. WOW ! Iwill probably sleep in in the morning, then visit the Souq (the local arab market which was already closed early this afternoon) and then I will wait for Benedictus in front of the Basilica with the thousands of other people waving all kind of flags. Actually, there was some kind of competition between the little Vatican flags (also the ones to fix on the car-windows) and black flags with something written on it distributed in front of the mosque. The interpretor of the TV-team told me that the translation read: "To the one god" and "Mohammed is the prophet" or something like this...
The radio guy interviewed me as he still needed some stuff for his report which will be broadcasted tomorrow. He interviewed pilgrims, local arabs and needed a somehow "neutral" voice.. whatever neutral means in this context.. I am certainly not really neutral with regard to the Pope... If it is posted on the internet, as his previous reports form the last days and I will not be cut out, I will post the link tomorrow.. ;-) not that I said anything particularly intelligent... but still.. ;-)
Now I will go for dinner to a very nice restaurant next door. Earlier, I looked at the menu and a guy invited me in to have a look and then offered me a coffee.. We chatted a bit. They were all so friendly that they deserve my money and the menu looked really great. Some kind of young/modern variation of local arab cuisine... Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that Nazareth is the biggest arab town in Israel, with 60.000 arabs of which 2 thirds Muslims and one third Christians.
Today's pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.de/muellju/Israel4?authkey=Gv1sRgCK-tn4Kv-MnzGQ&feat=directlink