7 Best Sights in Lower Galilee, Israel

At Kibbutz Degania Bet, a short drive from Degania Alef, you can smell the chocolate long before you get to the farm. In addition to the "bar" serving hot and cold chocolate drinks, and a tempting gift shop, Galita has eight different chocolate-making workshops. Reservations can be made on the website; there are workshops in English.

This beautiful oasis is a national treasure, popular with picnickers and swimmers alike. Lush palm trees and green lawns draw swarms of people who come for the day to relax. The spring water maintains a constant, year-round temperature of 28°C, or 82°F. As the stream ambles around the property, it has been widened into pools in some areas; there are also some artificial waterfalls. Lifeguards are on duty. Facilities include changing rooms for bathers, two snack bars, and a restaurant.

This four-acre zoo of exclusively Australian wildlife has kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, kookaburras, emus, and other exotic birds, some of which are available for petting. There's also a reptile enclosure and a bird aviary. English-speaking guides are on hand for groups.

Popular with Israelis—who come for the freshwater and mineral pools, giant waterslide, alligator farm, performing parrots, petting zoo, and restaurants—this place has history, too: in its heyday, it was the second-largest spa in the Roman Empire (after Baiae, near Naples). There's a hotel, a spa, and restaurants here, too.

At the foot of Mount Gilboa is this small national park with huge eucalyptus trees and a big swimming pool fed by a spring. Today it's a bucolic picnic spot, but almost 3,200 years ago, Gideon, the reluctant hero of the biblical book of Judges, organized his troops to fight a Midianite army that had invaded from the desert. At God's command—in order to emphasize the miraculous nature of the coming victory—Gideon dismissed more than two-thirds of the warriors and then, to reduce the force still more, selected only those who lapped water from the spring. Equipped with swords, ram's horns, and flaming torches concealed in clay jars, this tiny army of 300 divided into three companies and surrounded the Midianite camp across the valley in the middle of the night. At a prearranged signal, the attackers shouted, blew their horns, and smashed the jars, revealing the flaming torches, whereupon the Midianites panicked and fled, resulting in an Israelite victory.

The spring has seen other armies in other ages. It was here in 1260 that the Egypt-based Mamluks stopped the invasion of the hitherto invincible Mongols. In the 1930s, the woods above the spring hid Jewish self-defense squads training in defiance of British military law.

In the same compound as the Tabor Winery, this charming museum contains explanations about almonds and delectable products made from locally grown almonds. If you have kids in tow, don't think twice about signing up for the fun marzipan-making workshop. (There's also a chocolate workshop.) Best of all, you take your creations home.

The shepherds, weavers, and other characters in this reconstructed Jesus-era community delight children and adults alike. Using information gained from archaeological work done in the area, this attraction aims to re-create Jewish rural life as Jesus would have known it more than 2,000 years ago. Workshops, farms, and houses have been built with techniques that would have been used at the time. Interpreters in period costume cook and work at wine presses and looms, giving a sense of daily life. Reservations are required for guided tours, which meet on the second floor of the Nazareth YMCA.