Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Paradise

In the Beit Shean Valley of Israel, where the heat permeates every pore...(I know it's DRY HEAT, but 106 degrees, even DRY, is still hot-as-hell)...there is relief.




Three natural pools come together, part of the Amal River, with the water an azure blue hard to describe, or resist, its temperature a constant 28 degrees centigrade.







A lush landscape of palm trees swaying in the quiet breeze greets you and entreats you to slow down and embrace its beauty.



Garden, rock, water and sky meet at Sachneh, also known as Gan Hashloshah.




This is paradise on earth.

11 comments:

Leora said...

Wow. wow. wow. I'm there. Can I come back and do Beit Shean? I heard the place is a furnace in the summer.

Thanks for posting pics. I love it.

Gila said...

Oh-I so love it there!

Anonymous said...

Who wouldn't want to dive into these pools?

Jack Steiner said...

106 is pleasant. I love that kind of heat. No surprises there, we're desert people. How do you think we survived 40 years of wandering around. ;)

Anonymous said...

It really looks so beautiful, almost too good to be real!!!!

nw

Baila said...

Leora,
But it's a DRY furnace! Next time you come plan to do the
Beit Shean National Parkearly in the morning, before the sun really starts beating on you, and then reward yourselves with this afterwards. That's a really great day.

Gila, and ID,

The place really is heaven-on-earth.

Jack,

And our people didn't even have deoderant in those days...

NW,

It's real. Trust me, I'm to dumb to doctor photos.

Stephanie said...

Beautiful pics! We just came back from israel and we had the time of our lives. The dead sea was beyond hot..i call it las vegas heat..but i would have loved to have seen the place in your pics!

Anonymous said...

sooo beautiful. was that you in the bikini?
sz

Lion of Zion said...

i spent some time on kibbutz tirat tzvi in the bet shean valley after high school. we flew into ben gurion in the wee hours of the morning, so it was not oppresingly hot. then we got onto an air-conditioned bus. 3 hours later we stepped off the bus in tirat tzvi . . . and ran right back on. i had never felt searing heat like that in my life. ppl said, oh but its not humid. well 106 is still 106.

some of my friends volunteered to work in dayig or the date fields. i only worked in the a/c'ed chadar ochel the meat factory; what a change, stepping out of the 55 degree factory into 106 degree heat

Ezzie said...

GORGEOUS.

Baila said...

Stephanie,

There's always your next trip.

SZ,

Yes, I'm the the one in the thong bikini. You know how I like to show my hot body off.

LOZ,

"Searing" is a good word for the heat. I'd write a post on how to deal with the heat in this country, but it would only consist of two words: air conditioning.

Ezzie,

Plan on coming to see it in person one of these days. :)