Breakfast was awesome again; we are never going to lose those pounds.  Today was planned to be a gentle driving day in recognition of yesterday's long haul.  We wanted to drive completely around the Sea of Galilee (not hard, it's really a lake and not that big of one) and hopefully do a hike along the way along the lakeshore on the less populated east side.  Our research on the always reliable All Trails app revealed only one such hike and so, with that in our plans, we just started driving, looking for sightseeing targets of opportunity.  

First we came upon the signs for Capernaum and since that struck an historical memory we stopped there.  Unfortunately the only parking was in front of a fire hydrant and, not knowing the Israelis' tolerance for such, we kept our visit short.  Next, Phyllis was just in the midst of illegally passing an inexplicably slow moving vehicle on a bridge when we said, "whoa that was probably the River Jordan".  An illegal U-turn a little farther on brought us back for our first view of this unquestionably historic watercourse where we discovered a slow moving opaque river and a single person fishing.  We moved on to the hiking area.

The hike started well as we almost immediately took a detour off route down to a really nice beach with interesting reeds and trees and such.  Getting back on route we went about 100 yards when we came to a hundred-foot wide and apparently deep body of water where the trail was supposed to be and with no way around.  All Trails could use an update.

Next was a stop at the Ein Gev Kibbutz for lunch.  This kibbutz is mostly famous (in particular among tour groups) for its fish restaurant that serves "St. Peter's fish".  We were not that hungry but figured we could find something in one of the other eateries in the complex and, in any event, the harbor seemed like it would be interesting.  Unfortunately, outside of a food wagon there were no other places open.  However, the harbor was nice.  Like so many places we have been all around the world there were a couple of guys fishing off the breakwater.  Unlike those other places, however, these fishermen actually caught some really nice fish.  The breakwater also hosted a very nice artsy faux tree composed of anchors and stones from biblical times found in the harbor.

Moving on to the south side of the Sea we came upon the second best highlight of our day, a gelato stand.  Finally, lunch.  From there we stopped briefly at a place very near the outlet of the Jordan River where a number of Christian tour groups come to be re-baptized in the river.  It is a scenic part of the river and probably a vey nice experience.  Moving quickly now, as sites start to close entry around 3:00 and fully close by 4:00 (winter hours still), we drove up the west side to Nof Ginosar where the kibbutz had created a museum around a single artifact -- a boat discovered by a couple of local residents when a low-water year revealed its outline in the mud.  The boat, later determined to be about 2,000 years old, was excavated and moved to the village with heroic efforts by both the locals and world experts.  During the boat's journey to the museum it was completely encased in a thick layer of polystyrene and actually floated to the village.  Given its date of origin it has inevitably come to be called the "Jesus boat" as the boats mentioned in the New Testament would likely have been of a very similar design.  The village was also interesting for a fanciful collection of "sculptures" around the museum building.

Coming back to the guesthouse, and with dining options a little limited for Shabbat (though not nearly to the extent as in Jerusalem) we ventured just a little ways up the hill from our place to the Tangerine, where we had an excellent meal and a nice bottle of wine from the Golan Heights, the location of tomorrow's drive.