The Banias nature reserve is an oasis, hidden below the
desert. You’re driving through the
plains of the Golan Heights, wondering where a waterfall could be. You hike down into a kind of valley and
there it is, all the mountain run-off culminating in the beautiful Banias
Falls! There were also ancient remnants
of the Greco-Roman temples to the God Pan and, and from a later period another
large excavated palace (not nearly as large as Nimrod Fortress though) of
Agrippa II, Herod’s grandson. From an even later period was a Crusader city, which we didn't get a chance to see because apparently national parks close at a certain time!
Banias Falls
The trail had an awesome wooden walkway along the raging river.
Pretty flowers!
I call these Aluminium foil flowers!
A closer look. BTW, you have to say it like the Israelis...All-oo-min-ee-um.
Jeremy found some kind of animal bone on the side of the trail. Gross!
He's pretty sure it's a vertebrae.
This is where the Temple to the God Pan was. This is the left-most area in the artistic rendering below.
This is just to the right of the building on the left in the picture below.
This is what they believe the Temple of Pan looked like, which was dated back to 87 CE.
This video is at the ruins of the Palace of Agrippa II. This video is dedicated to Erik and Rene!
That Palace is a-grip-a ruined! HAHA!! Hilarious puns! Jeremy will have to explain that joke... and hopefully he remembers it from our concert in the sticks (near my old house) with Randy...
ReplyDeleteBTW - this whole part of the trip looked awesome! I love waterfalls and bridges so that bridge over the rushing river and the falls would have been so awesome to see in person. Jealous button!
ReplyDeleteI would like to use the drawing of what the temples of Pan looked like in my book. Can you give me permission to do so, or do you know who holds the copyright? Thank you. Kathy
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