Day 11 - Monday, April 15 - Israel Masada and Salt Sea

Today first to Masada and then to Eilat, the southernmost tip of Israel. 

Masada is a kind of fortress but also palace. Herod the great had it built with all the modern conveniences of the time, but was at the same time an excellent place to escape to if necessary, very difficult to reach and very easily defensible, because you have to go up through a winding so-called serpentine path that is very narrow. With dug out in the rocks a large water supply. 

Josephus Flavius wrote down the story of what happened there in Roman times, but the owner of a restaurant who had been manager of Masada for 7 years told some important anomalous details he had been told by archaeologists. Either way as almost always it is subject to interpretation and at best you can say whether something has a high chance or a low chance of being the correct interpretation. 

What is certain is how the Romans eventually conquered Masada. At the rear, Masada does not protrude as high, and there the Romans built a sort of upward running embankment, with a riding attack tower on top that was high enough to be on a par with the defensive walls. What remains now is that it is impressive, that rock with a flat top standing by itself separate from the mountain range in the background. 

Then if you drive 250 kilometers to Eilat almost the whole way you have the mountains and rock formations on the right, with on the left the lowest place on planet earth with the Dead Sea and behind it the mountains of Jordan, very different faces and always imposing and beautiful and impressive.

Videos:
(1) Masada, (2) On the way to Eilat.

Photos:
(1-3) View of and from Masada, (4-5) the Roman attack site, (6-7) On the way to Eilat, (8) View from Eilat on Aqaba and on Yam Suf or Red Sea.