Not every guide can take you “off the beaten track” but I can.

Hasmonean & Herod’s palaces, Wadi Qelt/Jericho

I like to drive to the palaces from the cutoff to Mitzpe Yericho on highway <1> on the ridge above Wadi Qelt, past the St. George monastery, past Herod’s fortress at Cypros to the western outskirts of Jericho. Definitely off the beaten track. The remains of the palaces spanning Wadi Qelt were in sorry condition but miraculously Israel Antiquities has been doing some new excavations and conservation work and things are looking a lot better.

Here are some photos of the site:

Column bases and column drums

General view of Hasmonean bathhouse built to west of large swimming pools

Pool complex in Hasmonean palace

Ritual bath/mikveh uncovered in the northeastern corner of the Hasmonean palace

King Herod’s third palace at Jericho was built on both sides of Wadi Qelt and is one of 3 sites where the remain of walls built of opus recticulatum and opus quadratum have been found, a typical Roman building technique.

Although the special King Herod exhibit is no longer on display at the Israel Museum there is an area in the archaelogical wing dedicated to artifacts from Herodium and other Herod sites that are fascinating to see. Ask your guide to combine sites like Jericho and Herodium with a visit to the museum – you get to see the artifacts in their context and the actual locations.

I’m looking forward to your next visit. I hope I’ll see you soon – I’ll be ready.

I’ve decided to combine last year with 2023 because frankly there’s not very much to report, I had a couple of half days of guiding the whole year and the war has been even harder than Covid. I’ve been working on my photography and did get away twice, 8 days in Masai Mara reserve in Kenya and about 2 weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia. Back in Israel I’ve been working on my birding skills and since November I’ve been taking photographs of birds and I’m happy to organize a tour around birds and/or photography. To see my latest photographs and updates check my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/shmuel.browns). The number of views of my website has risen to 761,800, that’s about 30,000 views a year so thank you. 

Cranes in flight, Agamon HaHula

Because Israel is on the migratory path between Europe/Asia and Africa 500,000,000 (that’s 500 million) birds fly over the country twice a year. Since the “ceasefire” with Hizbollah in Lebanon the national parks and reserves have re-opened in the north. Agamon HaHula just opened on Dec 22nd (it was closed since Oct 7th) and that’s a great place to experience the migration, the other place being the Negev and Eilat.

Time flies, I became a licensed guide in 2007 so I’ve been guiding visitors for 17 years. The last few years have been challenging as Israel was closed down and there were no tourists due to Covid. Just as we were recovering Hamas infiltrated the south of Israel on October 7th killing and raping innocent civilians and taking hundreds of prisoners. In fact, I was guiding on Saturday morning October 7th and met my clients at their hotel at 8:30am. The security guard asked me where did I think I was going? I said we were going to be in the Old City and then visiting the Israel museum. He said no, you should stay at the hotel where there is a protected shelter against rockets. So it seemed that the Old City was not going to be possible but I thought that we could still do the Israel museum so off we went. Within a few minutes there was a lot of rocket fire over Jerusalem (the first time I had seen rockets above the city) and we could see the trails of Iron Dome and then the explosions taking out the rockets. We made it to the museum but their security team was outside and told us that the museum was closed for the foreseeable future (I’m happy to report that they have re-opened). That was the end of guiding for 2023 and 2024.

“What about 2025?” you ask. Well, there are some tourists. I’m ready to guide you but not everyplace you might want to go will be possible to visit. You can contact me by using the information on my business card (Cell is also WhatsApp and Telegram).

For more information there are about 370 blog posts on this website/blog, in words and pictures (very close to 1500 of my photos). 

For those who may not know, I have an Israel Tours page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/IsraelToursbyShmuel/ that I update often. For those interested in photography and tours I have a page at https://www.facebook.com/iphotosandtours/

What have I been up to? I’ve guided the site of the Ummayad Hisham’s palace and the incredible mosaics in the bathhouse there. Recently I climbed the mountain overlooking Jericho and the Quarantal monastery to the Herodian site Dagon.

I also climbed Sartaba, Hyrcania and Machaerus in Jordan so that completes the set of King Herod’s desert fortresses and I can guide you at Alexandrium (Sartaba), Dagon, Cypros, Hasmonean & Herodian palaces near Jericho, Hyrcania, Machaerus, Herodium and Masada. There’s also another fortress currently being excavated overlooking highway 1 down to the Dead Sea near the museum at Inn of Good Samaritan which is a site that I really like showing people and I spent a week doing conservation work there on the mosaics. I worked with a team from the Israel Parks Authority on a mosaic from the 6th century synagogue in Gaza and a floor from a Byzantine Church in Jiflik that was moved there for safekeeping.

Part of mosaic floor from 6th C Jewish synagogue in Gaza

I did an in-depth 16 days with a couple where we covered historical (Caesarea, Acre, Nimrod fortress, Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Jerusalem, Herodium, Masada) and nature sites (Banias, Saar falls, Gamla to photograph the Griffon vultures, Agamon HaHula, Mitzpe Ramon, En Avdat, Hai Bar, Eilat Bird sanctuary) throughout the country, with some great food and wine along the way and 3+ days from Eilat to see Dana BioSphere Reserve, Petra (also Little Petra), new Petra museum and Wadi Rum. This is an email from the clients:

With Shmuel as our guide we visited well known sites as well as special areas “off the beaten path”. Shmuel provided great information and interpretation everywhere we went. We highly recommend Shmuel for anyone wanting great insights in visiting Israel.
As I said, we could never have done this amazing of a trip without you. Take care Andy and Paula

I also volunteered with Haifa University and excavated the Burnt Church at Sussita. Besides working on cleaning the mosaic floor in the narthex I also got to do some conservation work. Here I’m repairing a basalt Ionic capital.

For those who want a tour of the Gaza envelope to see where the kibbutzim are, Sderot, Nova memorial site, destroyed cars at Tkuma, etc. I do a solidarity tour for October 7th.

I look forward to your next trip to Israel and the Holy Land whenever that might be. I’ll be ready and delighted to guide you and share this very special place.

I have a DJI Mavic Air 2 drone and wrote a post in February 2021 about sharing a few photos taken with the drone in a post. It’s taken me 3 years but here it is.

Sent the drone up to get this aerial shot of the entire Hirbet el-MInya site, the palace built by the Ummayads on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Archaeological park at Mount Gerizim, site holy to the Samaritans. The site is really incredible with a rectangular walled area with a tower and inside an octagonal Byzantine martyrium/church (even with some mosaics).

Great to have a drone to capture the site from above!

I love to take photographs down at the Dead Sea.

Mosaic from a Byzantine church at Tel Shikmona, a site just south of the city of Haifa on the coast that existed from the Late Bronze Age to the Late Byzantine period. This mosaic looked like a landing marker so I let the drone down there.

Today we drove off road in the Judean desert to high above Jericho to get within reach of a mountain fortress called Dagon (by Josephus), then we still had to climb up and down over 3 mountains and take the “snake path” that zigzagged to the top.

On the way up you can look down the mountain and see the corner of the monastery below you.

On the top is an enclosure wall with an open gate built before World War I to protect the church which was never completed.

Inside the walls there are a few capitals and architectural elements scattered on the surface from the Herodian period.

The church is an interesting shape, an apse, no columns, a narthex? but two semi-circular areas on either side by the apse and one rectangular area across from a semi-circular area at the entrance. At first I thought maybe it was a cruciform church but I wonder if the shape is like an old key and that the church is somehow tied to the story of Saint Peter who was given the keys to the Kingdom.

That completes the set of desert fortresses and I can guide you at Alexandrium (Sartaba), Dagon, Cypros, Hasmonean & Herodian palaces, Hyrcania, Machaerus (that’s in Jordan), Herodium and Masada.

For anyone seeing this post I would encourage you to also check my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/IsraelToursbyShmuel/ where I share information and photos about tours and sites that I’ve visited with clients.

Here’s the itinerary I put together for the client, a combination of exploring nature and archaeological sites with the opportunity for taking photographs, the clients were specifically interesting in birds.

Day 1

Day 2

• Nahal Meshushim
• HaHula Reserve

Day 4      

• Nimrod fortress
• Archaeological Banias 

Day 5      

• Waterfalls in Nahal Ayun, Metulla
• JNF Agamon HaHula

Day 6

• Tour of Acre: Underground Crusader city, Hamam, Ramchal synagogue
• Aqueduct at Caesarea & Bird Mosaic