Trip to Ramla

One of the beautiful things about Israel is the coexistence of modernity and the ancient world. For instance, Ramla is a town which was founded sometime in the 8th century. The ruins of a mosque from that same century are still lying around with modern buildings just beyond them.

A couple hundred years after this mosque was built a large tower was constructed next to it. While the mosque was destroyed in an earthquake hundreds of years ago, the tower still stands and you can climb the circling staircase all the way to the top (which is the point from which the above picture was taken).

Ramla also offers an underground boating experience which was delightful and unexpected. There is an aquaduct that runs from the mountains (maybe around Jerusalem area) to Ramla. In the first picture above you can see stone square holes in the ground, these are shafts to this aquaduct. The aquaduct continues to the "Pool of Arches".

Shortly after arriving, my friend Miranda and I were the only ones left (Miranda also writes a blog, if you want to check it out you can at A Year in Israel). We canoed around and around the arches. At one point I tried to spin us in place between them. It worked for a couple of circles before I started hitting the pillars. This quickly became one of my favorite places in Israel.

It happened to be Sunday when we visited Ramla so we stopped in at a Franciscan church service which was being held in Arabic!

We finished the day by visiting the local outdoor market, my favorite way to shop for groceries. 

I'm going to feel like a tourism advertisement as I conclude this post because I'm still blown away by the fact that I was able to have such a wonderful day trip for under $10!