Dan, Golan Heights and Caesarea Philippi

From the Mount of Beatitudes, we left the Galilee area for the next couple of hours and drove to the northwestern tip of Israel - in fact, it kind of sticks up like a narrow finger with Lebanon on the left and Syria on the right. Needless to say, the area has seen a lot of conflict in the not-so-distant past.

The drive north featured the Galilee mountain range on the left and the Hula Valley on the right.

Our first stop was Dan - one of the tribes of Israel that was pushed to the north to settle. Genesis 14:14 references the fact that Abram chased some enemies as far as Dan.

There are some old archaelogical digs from ancient cities here, although we didn't spend much time looking at that. Instead, Dan is also one of three sources of the Jordan River. There was rushing water in numerous places, a sound that our guide said can only be heard in a handful of places in the entire country.

From there, we took a short drive to Caesarea Phillippi. After Herod died, his territory was divided among his three sons. Phillippi ruled the area in northeastern Israel. The site at Banias is mostly pagan ruins where the Romans and others built numerous temples to worship their many gods. Caesarea Phillippi is also the location where Jesus told Peter to build his house on the rock - fitting since the pagan temples are at the base of a solid, rock cliff.