Tiberius, Israel
Ibn Battuta is again quite out of sequence with his itinerary here, but as I was too, we will ignore it.
“....I continued my journey to the town of Tiberias. It was in time past a large and important city but nothing now remains of that save vestiges that bear witness to its former greatness and magnificence. In the town there are wonderful baths.....here too is the famous lake.....”
We spent much longer in Acre than anticipated, so by the time we arrived in Tiberius it was pitch dark and pouring rain. According to my ancient guidebook there was a Scottish Guesthouse, formerly a hospital, mission and hospice which had been run by the Church of Scotland for over a century. However what I found was a substantial stone-built hotel exuding a faint old-world glamour, called The Scots Hotel and which was, on appearances alone, clearly quite beyond my budget. The very accommodating receptionist told me to look for the guesthouse next door. It should have been perfectly simple. It was not - we could not find it and when, on our fifth attempt, we did, it was as lively as a morgue. Located in a residential area on a dark sidestreet with nobody about to ask directions - on the fourth try I suddenly saw a taxi that a young girl was getting into. I shouted to get the driver's attention before they drove off, running towards him. When I reached the car, the driver was in Shakespearian mode, one hand poised rather melodramatically over his heart. It is as well that I do not understand a word of Hebrew because on recovering his delicate equilibrium, he bawled at me. On reflection, given the part of the world we were in, his reaction may have been quite understandable, but it may also have had something to do with the fact that said young girl wearing a skirt that would not decently have covered a pelmet, was sitting beside him in the front seat. Perhaps he had other things on his mind, perhaps he thought I was her mother........either way I was still lost. When we did finally find it, we could not find anyone to let us in even though the main doors were open. We gave up. Earlier, on several inadvertent drives through town I had seen the Panorama hotel which is where we ended up.
