Colourful Dreamer

This was a big day. After breakfast at the Sisters of Nazareth Convent we set off to up into the Golan Heights below Mt Hermon to the Banias National Park and the site of Caesarea Philippi – the Roman city built by Herod the Great’s son Philip on the site of a Greek Temple for Pan and the Dancing Goats. It is built at the source of the Banias Stream, one of the main tributaries for the Jordan River. This is another wahi tapu - long been seen as a holy place – hence the Greek temple built at the time of Alexander the Great. It had been occupied for 2,000 years until the Syrian population fled after the 1967 Six-Day War. It is now part of Israel. The border with Lebanon and Syria were in the hills above us. When we were there, on the border, it was peaceful with uncertainty and danger lurking at the fringes. Last year it became part of the war zone with Hezbollah. We spent over two hours at the Banias National Park, walking through the ruins of the Temple of Pan and the first Greek se...