Hello, Tel Aviv! I never would have imagined that I would be visiting Isreal, but its such a beautiful place! Today had such a great day participating in the viewing of the natural beauty of Tel Aviv. We started off waking up around 8am, since none of us were very hungry because we had just woken up we grabbed a quick breakfast to-go from a little restaurant near our hotel, we got a big bowl of hummus and pita bread to share. While we were there we decided to go ahead and get lunch to take with us to Arbel National park. We started out with hummus again, and ordered some stuffed grapeleaves, shaksouka, thenia, and labneh. Our total bill for our breakfast and lunch was 90 ILS ($25 USD). Once we were all fuelled up and ready to go we go we were delivered a rental car to our hotel from the rental company, the delivery and rental of the car for the day was 49 ILS ($14 USD). We were very pleased with this cheap rate for a car rental for the whole day! Once we got our car all packed and ready to go with our food we headed up towards Arbel! This drive proved to be about two hours, which was the longest two hours of the boys life’s considering there were three of them jam packed in the back seat and one in the front. Seeing as I am the only girl in the group I would clearly be the best driver so much to my delight everyone agreed that I should drive to Arbel.
Once we got to Arbel it was about 11am, we were immediately taken away by the beauty of the sight, credited as the ‘gem of nature and landscape’ in Israel, we were not disappointed. Right next to the sea of Galilee, Arbel has lots of trails that can take you to the top of the mountain so you can look down over the sea of Galilee. We were so excited about this opportunity! Israel is the only country in the world that can have the claim of the holy land, the idea of looking over the famous sea of Galilee is so exciting! We decided to take one of the long 4 hour (round trip) trails to the very top, versus a short 30 minute trial that would let us just see a small portion of the natural beauty of the area. We decided since our trip walking up the mountain was going to take so long we better eat our lunch first, so we had a picnic at the bottom of the mountain before heading up to the top. Seeing as we took advantage of every photo opportunity it took us about three hours to get to the top, once we got to the top of the mountain at Arbel we were standing overlooking the sea of Galilee, what an amazing opportunity and breath taking view this was. While the hike was a difficult one, we all agreed that the view from the top was well worth it. The hike back down the mountain didn’t take quite three hours because we didn’t stop to take as many pictures, yet we were so tired from hiking up we walked down a little slower. Seeing as I am the most clumsy person on the planet I was worried about slipping and falling down the mountain. Luckily that didn’t happen and we had no sort of injuries.
Once we got back down to our car it was around 6:30 pm and we were exhausted from our hike, and STARVING from not having any food during it. We should have been more prepared and taken little snacks to eat along the way but oh well. On the way home we stopped for dinner at a little Israeli restaurant we passed along the side of the road. We decided since we were so hungry we would just get the family style dinner they offered. I loved our dinner, we had my personal favorite Mediterranean food, Kibby, but we had it made with beef instead of the traditional beef and lamb, my grandmother is from Lebanan so I grew up eating Mediterranean food but have never caught onto a taste for lamb and much prefer beef kibby to lamb kibby. We also had stuffed grape leaves again, green beans, cous-cous, spanakopatia, tabouli, and balaclava for dessert. I was so happy with dinner because I love Mediterranean food, however I think the boys were a little apprehensive about some of the food, specifically the cous-cous. Our dinner was a total of 181 INS ($50 USD)
After dinner we continued our drive home, got to the hotel and called the rental car company to tell them they could come pick up the vehicle. Once we got back to the hotel we were all exhausted, we took showers and met up after to discuss plans for tomorrow, were going to hit the beach!
Total Cost of the Day: $320 INS/ $88 USD
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