Wednesday: Golan heights

We climb out of the shore lands on the Sea of Galilee, and up to the Golan heights. We visit a former Syrian gun emplacement, with its view of the kibbutz far below. Now, long after the 1963 six-day war, in which the Golan was conquered by Israel, there are still many landmines buried. As the weather begins closing in, we continue to climb, aiming for the Ben Tal observation point.

At a kibbutz, high in the Golan, we wait in the snow for our "plan B" visit to be cleared with the kibbutz officials. The road to Ben Tal observation point we were scheduled to visit is closed by the snowstorm. Kibbutz kids playing in the snow suggested that, even high up here, snow isn't very common.

We go to a conference/community room in the kibbutz. The local official is a pleasant young man, who patiently explains modern kibbutz life to us, and answers our questions. More than anything, the ambience of the place was, to me, like East Germany after unification. Spartan, somewhat run-down construction, a community slowly losing its most communal aspects, good people dealing with privatization, change, the young people moving away, mixed feelings about how good "the good old days" were, and how good or bad the "brave new world" is going to be.

Lunch at Kibbutz Dan, then on to Caeseria Phillipi, another Kibbutz, and back to the hotel in Tiberius, on the shores of Galilee.

(more from around the Sea of Galilee, after getting into Jerusalem, and perhaps a faster wi-fi connection)