Are you ready to see heaven on earth?

I remember that there was a moment when I thought of not going to the Golan Heights and the Yam Kineret (Sea of Galilee) at all - beaches, nature reserves with entrance fees, a lot of annoying hills and mountains, and all of that in a humid, boiling hot climate? Not my cup of tea.

Anyway, a long long chain of spontaneous decisions and coincidences (which were meant to be, one way or the other), which would take me a hundred years to tell, brought me to the Yam Kineret a few days ago.

It indeed is boiling hot, but what I saw made up for all the sweat and hard breathing. But see what I'm talking about myself: The Kineret.

sunset...

...and sunrise

breathtaking!!!

The following day I found out that just during Sukkot holidays, which are right now, there is a bus going around the whole lake every two hours - for free! Whoever made this present for me, thanks a lot! :D

All the pictures are taken from inside the bus, so you really can't imagine how it looks in reality. Let me tell you that those pictures are nice, but don't reach the real deal at all.

all mine!

I could've stayed here forever and met new people, both locals and tourists, very easily on the beach or wherever else I went. Still I can't swim in this beautiful, beautiful lake all day long, so I decided to visit the Golan Heights - on friday evening, without public transport. We all know what that means: Hitchhiking, hooray!

I often heard that, due to the general lack of public transport, hitchhikers were more common in this area, but I had never imagined how easygoing and open people are here. More than once the first car I waved to stopped, and some people even already had a hitchhiker with them when they picked me up. So it came that I arrived at in Gfar Gil'adi, were my lovely couchsurfing host Atar lives, only 90 minutes after I had started the trip - which meant about 20 minutes of waiting in total.

But this is not the only reason why I'm in love with the Golan Heights, although it indeed makes them pretty attractive :D Just see yourself once again:

a Moshav near Kiryat Schmona

view from Bental Mountain - you can see Syria in the not-so-distant distance

again you can see the Israeli-Syrian border

after a heavenly view, we had a heavenly lunch

just driving around a little...

and then it rained!!! :D

Dado viewpoint: you can see Metulla, which is the most Northern town of Israel and surrounded by three Lebanese boarders

the brown hill is already Lebanon

the Hula valley

Do I have to add anything?? I really don't think so.