Visit my websites at www.travelwriters.com/richardvarr or www.varrwriter.com. I am a member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).
I recently returned from Israel and added the below blogs.
GOOD NEWS! My novel of international intrigue, Warming Up to Murder, is now available as an ebook, and in Kindle and Nook formats. It’s about a TV reporter who finds himself chasing the “big story” spanning two continents. See the links below or click on under “Links” to the right.
View of Tel Aviv from the Old Jaffa port. Photo by Richard Varr
Tel Aviv reminds me of a modern American city. It’s hard to imagine how this town, with its skyscraper-studded skyline, was born atop sand dunes just over 100 years ago outside the walls of the old Arab Jaffa port.
Rothschild Avenue. Photo by Richard Varr
I walk along the city’s popular beachfront promenade, passing a string of resort hotels and benches offering breezy views of the Mediterranean Sea. My journey leads me to popular pedestrian-filled spots including Dizengoff Street with its many shops, and central Rothschild Avenue lined with palm trees and buildings in Bauhaus architectural style.
Rabin Square with Tel Aviv City Hall in the distance. Photo by Richard Varr
I pass through the Carmel Market, the city’s largest open-air bazaar, where lamb kabobs sizzle on grills and vendor stalls overflow with plums, bananas and olives. I stop at Rabin Square, adjacent to the block-like City Hall, where I visit the memorial to slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Old Jaffa's narrow streets. Photo by Richard Varr
Tel Aviv's Azrieli Towers. Photo by Richard Varr
When I reach 4,000-year-old Jaffa, one of the world’s oldest seaports, I see pedestrians poking their heads into art galleries, meeting friends in cafes and walking up to a few vantage points for excellent views of the city skyline and shoreline. “On a clear day, you can see the buildings of Jerusalem and the chimneys of Caesarea,” says tour guide Yaniv Bar. Old Jaffa includes flea markets, an archeological museum, Napoleonic cannons and a 17thcentury monastery that now serves Jaffa’s Armenian community.
Bauhaus architectural style along Rothschild Avenue. Photo by Richard Varr
Because of its Bauhaus architecture, Tel Aviv has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and nicknamed the “White City.” Bauhaus is a modern architectural style which includes rounded balconies, asymmetrical facades with windows running horizontally, and even porthole-style windows which are reminders of the ships that brought Jewish immigrants to the Holy Land. Many facades are white in color.
Building with Bauhaus architectural style along Rothschild Avenue. Photo by Richard Varr
“Straight lines, simplicity, clean, clear, very easy and fast,” says Bar of this architectural style that originated in Germany. “There are no decorations, but instead something simple and clean.”
“In the 1930s when a lot of German Jews during the Nazi rise fled the country, some of them came to Tel Aviv and brought this style,” he adds.
Tel Aviv at night from Old Jaffa Port. Photo by Richard Varr
“They started to build our buildings, but only here, the weather is much nicer. Here you can add balconies, because there are nice sunny days. So the Israeli international style is a bit different then what is known as Bauhaus.”
Grand hall in Crusader City, Akko. Photo by Richard Varr
I hear muffled voices reverberating off the 900-year-old walls in one of the world’s oldest seaports. I’m walking amidst the subterranean stone facades of Akko’s Crusader City with its arches and grand knights’ halls connected by dimly-lit tunnels and passageways. I pass through the Magnificent Hall, the Hospital and the Dungeon – all appropriately named as part of this Crusaders stronghold on their quest to liberate the Holy Land.
Walking through the narrow tunnels, Crusader City, Akko. Photo by Richard Varr
“During the 11th and 12th century, you were not underground,” explains tour guide Roni Houbani. “This was the ground surface, so this was part of the city. So you were in a castle like a castle in Europe.” It’s where such orders as the Knights Templar and the Hospitaller Order of St. John set up camp, and where excavation work continues today after the Crusader City was eventually conquered by the Ottomans and left in ruins.
“You move one stone, you find something. You move another stone, you find something else,” Houbani tells me. “It takes a lot of detective work.”
Baha'i Shrine at night, Haifa. Photo by Richard Varr
My visit to Akko is just one stop on my three day tour of northern Israel with biblical and Roman ruins steeped in and around hilly and treed landscapes, deep valleys and along the wave-crashing shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea.
Haifa is Israel’s third-largest city, sitting at the foot of Mount Carmel. Perched atop the mountain is the Baha’i Shrine, the city’s symbol and centerpiece, with its golden dome and succession of “hanging” garden terraces adorning the mountainside. Both the shrine and gardens are classified by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. I also walk the streets of the restored Templar Colony built by German Templars in the 19th century. It’s now a hip neighborhood of boutiques and restaurants.
Yardenet baptism site on the Jordan River. Photo by Richard Varr
Along the Sea of Galilee, Yardenet on the Jordan River is a baptism site luring Christians worldwide. Nearby, I visit the ruins of the 4th century marble synagogue at Capernaum, home to Peter the Fisherman, and the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount.
Sea of Galilee. Photo by Richard Varr
Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee shore, has several hot springs that were key to the Romans establishing Tiberias as a resort town. It’s considered one of the four holy cities of Judaism because much of the Talmud was written there. The excavations of Beth Shean have revealed remnants of the Roman-Byzantine town that an earthquake leveled in the 8th century.
Roman theater ruins at Beth Shean. Photo by Richard Varr
In Nazareth, home of Jesus, I visit the Basilica of the Annunciation, where the Angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to the Virgin Mary with word that she was to give birth to the son of God. Caesarea on the Mediterranean was once a vast Roman port with, remaining today, a well preserved Roman Theater and Crusader and Ottoman ruins as well.
11th century Crusader ruins at Caesarea. Photo by Richard Varr
Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth. Photo by Richard Varr
The Courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Photo by Richard Varr
I fought the crowds and waited in line for a glimpse of the sites where it is believed Jesus Christ was crucified and buried, and then resurrected. That was with a tour group. But when I came back a couple of days later on my own, I had a chance to slip past the crowds and be a part of the daily processional mass inside Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Stone of Unction inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Photo by Richard Varr
This daily processional mass in one of Christianity’s holiest shrines has its origin around 400 A.D., with the procession similar to the one today beginning around 1430. The video link below is only a short clip from the mass that took place on January 23, 2012.
On the right is a photo of the Stone of Unction inside the church, where it is believed Christ’s body was anointed and wrapped after his death.
Domes of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre as seen from the tower of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. Photo by Richard Varr
The below clip is a continuation of the Daily Procession Mass as described in the previous post, now taking place outside the church’s inner chapel built upon the area believed to be Christ’s Tomb.
Our helicopter swerves over the sharp and peaked edges of the snow-packed mountain range, where our final destination is now in clear view. We’re headed for the flat, ice-covered floor of the Tasman Glacier, New Zealand’s largest.
Upon landing, I can hear the crunch as my feet step onto freshly-fallen snow that will soon be part of the thick glacial ice.
Walking on the Tasman Glacier. Photo by Richard Varr
There’s not a footprint in sight as I gaze at the frozen valley of white before me – snow-covered mountain peaks shrouded by both wispy and puffy layers of cloud bands above.
Richard on the glacier.
“It’s just something that can’t be touched – it’s totally natural,” trumpets Mark Hayes, our chopper pilot and guide. “The glacier is alive – no two ways about that. It moves during a 24-hour period, eight inches a day, and it changes all the time.”
Tasman Glacier Terminal Lake: helicopter view. Photo by Richard Varr
Within Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, the Tasman Glacier is now 27 kilometers (17 miles) in length. Slowly receding like most glaciers around the world, it blackened rock-covered edge breaks apart into icebergs and melts into the milky pale-blue waters of the Tasman Glacier Terminal Lake, the water’s opaque color due to a high concentration of “rock-flour,” or finely ground rock from the moving glacier.
Local guides tell me the glacier is losing about 200 meters a year, but snowfall continues to add to its thickness, as it takes 30 feet of snow to compress into one foot of glacial ice.
Aoraki/Mount Cook in a cloud swirl. Photo by Richard Varr
I stayed one night within the National Park – part of my three day adventure in this mountainous region of New Zealand’s South Island. At every corner of the park, with its commanding rocky ridges and sturdy pine tree forests, it’s easy to catch a glimpse of Aoraki/Mount Cook, the country’s tallest mountain.
Statue of Sir Edmund Hillary with Aoraki/Mount Cook in the distance. Photo by Richard Varr
At The Hermitage, a multi-story upscale hotel in Mount Cook Village offering excellent views, a statue of Sir Edmund Hillary stares intently at the 12,316-foot-high Mount Cook. A New Zealand native, Hillary climbed Mount Cook in 1948, but became a legend five years later when he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first known climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Hiking in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. Photo by Richard Varr
Several hiking paths in and around Mount Cook Village lead to rocky outposts, scenic river and lake vistas, and closeup views of the area’s three nearby glaciers.
Later that day, I gaze upon yet another view of the Tasman Glacier Terminal Lake from above; this time reaching the top of an adjacent mountaintop traversing rock and gravel-filled roads in 4×4 vehicles. “It’s a bit of a moonscape and it’s so crystal clear up here,” says guide Willy Nunn. “And the air taste delicious.”
“When there’s no wind, there’s dead silence,” he adds, “with only the sounds of the gravel falling down in mini avalanches.”
Tasman Glacier Terminal Lake from atop a mountain, with blackened glacial tongue. Photo by Richard Varr
Thermal crater in Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland. Photo by Richard Varr
Greater Rotorua is an astounding dichotomy. The natural beauty of rolling hills and aquamarine lakes contrasts to its volcanic activity with boiling mud pits, hissing fumaroles, yellow-streaked sulfur mounds and spitting, gurgling geysers. And there’s no mistaking the sulfurous smells wafting through the air. Nonetheless, the area’s geothermal characteristics make it indeed a one-of-a-kind attraction.
Champagne Pool. Photo by Richard Varr
I visited the Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland with its craters filled with chalky-green waters, sulfur residues and crude oil slicks; its trickling waterfalls; and the bubbling and steaming Champagne Pool, named so because of its orange-tinted mineral deposits lining the pool’s perimeter.
Lady Knox Geyser. Photo by Richard Varr
Nearby Wai-o-tapu is the small Lady Knox Geyser which spouts daily just after 10 AM.
The Whakarewarewa Thermal Area includes the large Phohutu Geyser, shooting steaming water as high as 100 feet and erupting on average of 10 to 25 times a day. “There are so many things I see in a geyser. There’s a power, a strength and the ability that has to change,” explains Whakarewarewa guide Shane Marshall. “When I look to the base of the geyser, there’s all that strength you can see from the actual base. When it first comes out of the ground, there’s intense strength pushing the water out.”
Pohutu Geyser. Photo by Richard Varr
“We as a people, we pull all of our strength from the environment around us,” Marshall continues. “So what that tells me is anytime I need strength I just need to look to the environment to remind me of it. As the water comes up it changes, so again that offers me the ability to look and see change, going from intensely hot to cold.”
Meeting House. Photo by Richard Varr
Whakarewarewa also has the Ngā Mōkai-a-Koko Mud Pool, formed by volcanic acid gases and steam decomposing minerals to form clay called Kaolin. Nearby is the Thermal Village with its indigenous people’s Māori meeting house and village; and Te Puia with the Māori Arts and Crafts Institute and its own village as well, offering live cultural performances, carvings and weavings. “The village and meeting house give people the opportunity to come and see who we are and to see our living and ceremonial areas, without actually intruding on us as a people,” notes Marshall.
The "Devil's Bath," a crater with water colored by ferrous salts and sulfur. Photo by Richard Varr
Other natural wonders and attractions include the expansive Lake Rotorua, popular for water sports, fishing and boating; the Buried Village encompassing what remains of a village after the 1886 Mount Tarawera volcanic eruption; and the Polynesian Spa, with thermal pools fed by underground springs.
Welcome to my blog!
GOOD NEWS! My novel of international intrigue, Warming Up to Murder, is now available as an ebook, and in Kindle and Nook formats. It’s about a TV reporter who finds himself chasing the “big story” spanning two continents. See the links below or click on under “Links” to the right.
