After hearing so many good things about this hike up Mt. Arbel, we knew we wanted it on our Israel bucket list. A couple of weeks before we moved away, we made the drive up to the Sea of Galilee with our friends, The Mayberry’s, to cross this one off. Mt. Arbel sits high in the lower Galilee area and on a clear day you can see all the way to Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights. This time of year provides not only stunning views, but everything is swathed in green and colorful wildflowers, and the weather is as perfect as it gets.
Mt. Arbel overlooks the Sea of Galilee as well as the Jesus Trail, which is where many believed Jesus may have walked between Capernaum and Nazareth.
Cannot get over how beautiful this place is. Also, it was an extremely windy day at the top (laughing at Tessa in the above pic with her hairy smile) because a storm had rolled in the night before, which also closed many of the main trails.
I never would have guess that Israel was this green and lush…so gorgeous.
Overlooking the places and sea where so many critical events from the life of Christ occurred will always remind me of how blessed we were to live here.
Because most of the hiking trails were closed, we made our way to the old synagogue right down the street and began our hike there. We hiked the 3 miles down to the Arab village at the base of the mountain.
Remnants of the old synagogue at the start of our hike. It was built in the 4th century BC with just some pews and columns remaining. There are tons of cave dwellings from the Second Temple period in the area as well.
The hike was gorgeous. Every bit of it. We crossed bulging streams, picked wildflowers, got very muddy, laughed with friends and made plans to just chuck our shoes at the end of it! We got very dirty. :)
We basically hiked this valley right here and had the best time. The sheer cliff on each side at the end of the hike had all of us in awe. Seriously rivaled the views of Switzerland at some points. Stunning.
I asked Taylor if she could push this rock down the hill it was sitting on and she gave it a very valiant effort! ;)
Tessa has recently discovered her love for hiking and basically had all of us running to keep up with her and Bella the entire 3 hour hike. Love her enthusiasm for challenging things. It makes the hike so much fun for me as a mother.
The icing on the cake were all of these goats at the finish line. They were there with their shepherd and the kids loved them. They had the HUGEST ears we’ve ever seen.
The only way to get back to our cars after the hike was to turn around and go back, which wasn’t going to work with our big crew and the hour of the day as well as a lack of water. So, we walked to a gas station and waited for the husbands to call a taxi and get our cars for us. It was such a beautiful day and I cannot recommend enough this hike and getting to the top of Mt. Arbel!