Milano

The view from Milan's Hotel Aspromonte, where we stayed for four days.

In downtown Milan we met this amazing accordion player:

The entrance to a shopping arcade near Piazza Duomo.

Interior of the Milan Cathedral.

On the huge front door, The espousal of Joseph and Mary.

The courtyard of the Pinocoteca Museum.

Raphael's Espousal of Mary and Joseph, in the Pinocoteca.

One of so many beautiful and tender paintings of the Madonna and Child.

I was struck by how much Renaissance art celebrates domesticity, especially in scenes of mother and child or husband and wife. This supremely humanizing art honors and elevates the everyday aspects of human life with its moments of tenderness and love, revealing a divine quality to the bond between parent and child, between husband and wife.

Cyprus scenes

Cyprus hills

Monastery near Lefkara:

A shop in the old Cypriot mountain village of Omodos

The Roman theater in Kourion

Mosaic tiles in the Roman baths at Kourion

Christmas ships

enjoying Cypriot fish meze: a variety of dishes,
brought to the table in a seemingly endless procession

Anastasia and Savva, our Cypriot friends

A Cyprus Christmas

We spent a wonderful week with my former student, Anastasia Manoli, and her husband Savva and their little boy Yiorgos. They were marvelous hosts, welcoming us into their home, taking us to interesting places,



ordering the right food for us to eat at restaurants,


and including us in their family Christmas dinner at Anastasia's parents (notice the Jack Daniels whiskey, though we also discovered the pleasures of Cypriot zivannia and Commandario):


Anastasia and family picked us up at the airport, and after coffee at a nearby cafe she took us to St. Lazurus church:

Lazarus came to Cyprus after Jesus raised him from the dead, and lived another thirty years before dying a second time. He is buried in this church.


We have much more to post of our visit to Cyprus, but have limited access to the internet, in a Naharyia mall cafe in the north of Israel, so we'll end for now.
Happy New Year to all.

Touring the North of Israel

On Sunday we bid farewell to our Jerusalem apartment;


I caught the bus downtown, picked up the rental car we had reserved, drove back to Baka, loaded our two suitcases into the trunk, and off we went! The car felt like such freedom after the past several weeks of buses. Our destination was the Jordan River valley, but we couldn't resist exploring a little of eastern Jerusalem on our way out of town. We explored long enough to get lost--all too easy in Jerusalem--and eventually, after asking at a gas station, found the highway going down, down, down, through bare and arid hills, to the Jordan River, far below sea level

and past the obligatory camel.


Turning north, we continued through the Jordan valley, up to Gan Hashlosha, an Eden-like national park.


We enjoyed swimming in the naturally warm pool and having our feet nibbled by little brown fish; afterward, a wonderfully superb dinner at the restaurant in the park--our best since NYC.

Lodgings were close by: Kibbutz Bet Aleph, where we slept in comfort--and in the morning a basket full of typical Israeli breakfast items was delivered to our door: cheese, tuna, olives, chopped tomato and cucumber, rolls, juice, fruit, and even halvah.


Our next stop was Tiberius, a historic city on the banks of Kinneret, (The Sea of Galilee).



We indulged in coffee on the roof terrace of The Scots Hotel, an elegant, well maintained spot of beauty:



with its pleasant view of the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights in the far distance:



From Tiberius we drove up the Hula valley as far as Kiriat Shemona, then turned back toward Safed, high in the hills of the Galilee.


The friendly people in the tourist information office recommended a bed-and-breakfast, made a reservation, and sent us on our way to The Safed Inn, a wonderful place owned and managed by a native of Safed and his Jewish-American wife Riki, who eagerly talked with us about Israeli politics and religion. Before bed we enjoyed a warm, relaxing dip in their garden hot tub.

Next morning, the old city and the artist's colony: old synagogues,



archeological remains, a remarkable candle factory, and many art galleries:



After Safed we stopped briefly at Rimon Winery. "Rimon" is Hebrew for pomegranate, and this winery specializes in 100 percent pomegranate wine. The fruit is both delicious and beautiful:


Our last stop in the Galilee region was Hazor, the ruins of an ancient Canaanite/Biblical city. It was the model for James Michener's fictional city of Makor in The Source, which Libby has been reading since we arrived in Israel. We strolled among the desolate ruins, admiring the ingenuity, resilience, and courage of the people who, through the rise and fall of empires, made Hazor home.




Too soon we began our descent from the high Galilee region to Rachel and Shlomo's Kfar Saba home near Tel Aviv to grab a few hours sleep, leaving at 3:30 a.m. to arrive at Ben Gurion airport the required three hours before our 7:05 flight to Cyprus...