what a trip… Israel!
not having travelled abroad for a longer distance than to Penang in the last 3 years, the chance to travel to the Middle East I could not pass up and accompanied Matthias on a biz trip to Israel over Chinese New Year.
we spent a few days on our own and visited an old friend from Hong Kong who moved to Jerusalem 3 years ago.
the images are from the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa, smack in the center of the City, starting from the German Quarters right up the Carmel Mountain. they are beautiful, but for the most part not accessible for non-believers.
but the memory of the gardens, indeed almost all parts of the country we traveled through, pale in comparison to the lingering and deep impression Jerusalem left us with!
what a remarkable place of shared human history, the gateway from the origin of us, emigrating from the African continent on to Europe and Asia, birthplace of quiet some man-made gods, lost cultures and empires – a place fought over for thousand and thousand of years and ongoing still…
our brilliant guide, the historian Eran Tearosh, ended his day tour for us in Jerusalem’s Old City with these wise words: “in neither the Bible, the Koran, the Torah or any other religious book or historical document have we ever found proof that any of these gods ever existed. but today, we have walked many hours over and through the living history of what really matters – the believe!”
now I am revisiting the book: “a people’s history of the world” by Chris Harman and my interest in history of all kind is revived…
