I’d like to share a 7-day tour that I created for a family’s first trip to Israel. They had 2 days in Jerusalem before I met them. Here is the itinerary I worked out with them:

Day 1

• pickup 8am at hotel in Jerusalem, day trip
• 9am Dig for a Day, archeological excavations at Tel Maresha
• drive down to the Negev via Beersheva, picnic lunch at Park Golda
• 2pm Sfinat Hamidbar for 1 hour camel ride
• drive through Large Makhtesh, petrified trees and colored sand
• back to Jerusalem, dinner recommendations: Fish & Olive, Ima, Darna, Eucalyptus

Day 2

• drive from Jerusalem to Masada
• Ein Gedi nature reserve
• Rachel, Charlotte and Celia enjoyed a winter float in the Dead Sea

Day 3

• City of David tour, including walking through Hezekiah’s Tunnel where the water reached Celia’s (who is 6 years old) waist
• braid challah & meet Sumsum, our golden retriever
• Friday night dinner with family

Day 4, Shabbat

• afternoon, walk to Israel museum to see Second Temple model and Shrine of the Book

Day 5

• drive up the Jordan Rift valley
• Old Gesher: Rutenberg hydroelectric project, kibbutz life in 1948
• Bet Shean, Roman/Byzantine city and the tel, where Charlotte figured out that the clay brick buildings could be Egyptian and Michael asked how we knew it was a tel and not just a hill
• Dinner at Decks in Tiberias – the sweet potatoes baked in a wood-fired oven were a hit, on to our B&B at Had Ness in the Golan

Day 6

• tour the Golan Heights
• Banias archaeological site, quiz on archaeology and layers at the entrance overlooking the excavations of Byzantine church; cave of Pan, temples, Herod’s temple, opus reticulatum, 7 species of Eretz Yisrael and what kind of tree is this? Linda figured out that it was a walnut and we tasted a nut
• Banias nature reserve (w. waterfall) and then it started raining
• planned to have lunch at Witch and the Milkman at Nimrod but instead drove to Druze village of Ma’asade for humus, salads, etc.
• got some water from Kinneret/Sea of Galilee for our Yam l’yam/Sea to sea journey
• dinner at Shiri in Rosh Pina

Day 7

• Akko: underground Crusader Halls – for some reason there was a piano so Charlotte played a piece from her recital, Okashi museum, Turkish Bath-house, Templar tunnel
• Haifa: Bahai gardens, German Colony
• drive down the coast
• stop at aquaduct at Caesarea, poured our water from the Sea of Galilee into the Mediterranean Sea, completing our Yam l’yam journey
• drop off at airport