Opinions About Israel

Things were not as we thought they would be in Israel. I guess I just read a lot of Bible verses and things about the places we would visit, not looking at what they would actually look like now. Basically there is a place of worship built on every single site, sometimes several on top of each other! Each religion or group of people who conquered an area apparently either knocked down the previous site and/or built their own version over it. There is conflict with every belief system of course. There is no resemblance to the time of Jesus in most situations. That is not the fault of the tour - just how the country is. 

But yes, to me I was stunned we did not visit the church of the wedding! The obvious hours were posted for all of time! Strange. I will definitely mention it in my comment paper to the travel agency. I do not believe I would suggest this company again for Israel. There is poor continuity when there are people added to the group in the middle of the tour and having multiple hotels to pick up people in this crazy traffic is just a joke. It was probably a small distance to travel but one night when we were the last dropped off, it took 45 minutes from the last spot to drop us off (stopped in traffic most of the time). Changing guides... that was unsettling as well. 

Drivers: I have been on few tours but have noted that even on cruise ship tours the driver is there to give a hand to people on and off the bus, had a stool for big steps, or at least the driver is personable or friendly, etc. This was not the case with our driver. He barely ever spoke a word to us. Even with limited English he could have smiled and attempted to be friendly but he wasn't, though I tried several times. I even bought him an apple and he refused it, though at my insistence he did take it eventually. At times the first guide and driver seemed at odds. We even missed seeing a site because the driver apparently went the wrong way and then refused to go back. I am not sure that is accurate but it seems like what happened. More than once the first guide asked  the driver to slow down, he did seem to be driving awfully fast a few times.  

There were times we walked by significant things and did not even pause for a moment to take a photo. In addition, when we visited places neither of our guides gave us a brochure or anything to refer to. Clearly there were places that were numbered and we could have read about it ourselves at our own pace during the free time we had there. I wised up soon and began getting a brochure at each entrance that had them. 

With our new guide Ali: When we got to the Old City we were in the back of the bus. The guide took off when he got out and the first part of the people followed him but the last 7 of us did not even know what direction he went! We stood for a few minutes and then a man in the group said we should go a certain way as most people around were going that particular way. We did, then eventually we saw the guide coming back for us. Ali explained he wanted to get us a good place in line. It would have been nice if he told us that and pointed out the direction we should go, but he did not! This was disturbing and made one wonder if it was necessary to ask more questions about each stop we came to. 

It would be ideal to take a trip like this with a group from your own church. That was our hope of course, but it didn't work out for us. We went now when we could go as we probably will not have the chance again.