Day 01
Nazareth, Kfar Cana and the Sea of Galilee Sacred Sites
- Meet the tour guide and visit the Basilica of the Annunciation, which stands on what is believed to be the place where the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she was carrying Jesus. If time permits, visit St. Joseph's Church, which is believed to be the home of Mary, Joseph, and their son Jesus, who may once have lived here.
- Head to Kfar Cana.
- Cana of Galilee stands on what is believed to be the site of Jesus' first miracle, when he attended a wedding with his mother and turned six jars of water into wine. There is an option to stop here if time allows.
- Next, continue to the Mount of Beatitudes.
- According to Christian tradition and the New Testament, the Mount of Beatitudes is the place where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, which included the main points of his teachings. At the top of the mountain are a monastery, a church, a hostel of Franciscan nuns, a garden, and a farm belonging to the Italian mission in the Land of Israel. The church was built between 1936 and 1938 by the architect Antonio Berlozzi and was designed in an octagonal shape to symbolize the eight verses from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount that begin with the word "blessed." The windows in its eight walls are decorated with the verses of the sermon. On the floor of the church, around the altar, are seven tablets inscribed with the virtues according to the Sermon on the Mount: hope, humility, faith, courage, justice, generosity, and wisdom. Down the mountain are the remains of a Byzantine church and monastery dating from the 4th to the 7th century AD.
- Go to Tabgha. Here, visit two churches: the Church of the Multiplication, where Jesus miraculously shared five loaves and two fish among five thousand people, and St. Peter's Primacy/Manza Christi, which allegedly marks the spot of Jesus' reinstatement of Peter as chief among the Apostles.
- Proceed to Capernaum. According to the New Testament, Jesus made Capernaum the center of his activity for a long time, and one of the twelve apostles - Saint Peter and his brother Andrew, as well as Jacob ben Zebedee and his brother Yohanan - lived there, most likely in the house of St. Peter's mother-in-law.
- Lastly, visit a beautiful site at the northernmost point where the Jordan flows from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, where you can be baptized. The site also has a beautiful souvenir shop offering Dead Sea products, jewellery, books, and Judaica products.
Note: The remaining time is for the round tour and travel time spent moving from one attraction to another.
