3 Best Sights in Lower Galilee, Israel

This 2,600-acre park sits on a plateau that slopes from the Arbel Valley to a towering cliff at the top of Mount Arbel, with panoramic views of the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights, and Mount Hermon beyond. Ancient texts indicate that the Seleucid Greeks conquered the biblical-era Jews of Arbel while making their way to Jerusalem. Roman historian Flavius Josephus describes a battle here in 37 BC between the Jews and Marc Antony, who had been sent to suppress the Jewish rebellion. According to Josephus, the Jews were "lurking in caves... opening up onto mountain precipices that were inaccessible from any quarter except by torturous and narrow paths." Antony eventually crushed the rebels by lowering his soldiers into the caves from above. Today, hikers can take trails to that fortress of natural caves, and see other evidence of ancient settlements, including the ruins of an ancient synagogue.

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.

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.