We head out to Nazareth, which is located high in the hills. Its a large, crowded city. I ask--they estimate a population of about 60,000. Traffic--difficult, no impossible. There's one road in, one road out. At the Church of the Annunciation, we see the "family home". It's plausible, a grotto of sorts, where the carpenter shop appears to be a cave. You view it through a hole in the floor of the current, modern church. The Church of the Annunciation is indeed modern, but built over the ruins of a Crusader church, which was built over a Byzantine church. Our guide tells me that there are images of Mary sent to this, the current church, from all over the world. Without a hint of irony, he tells us we can find "Miss America" on the second floor. We do. She's quite modern, quite metallic, quite shiny. She's not at all shy.
We venture on, navigating the single road. Cars dodge around each other, cut each other off, double park, park in the center strip, stop . . .whatever. But there's no choice of route. This is the way to Nazareth. Crowded, threatened, inconvenienced, frustrated. Nothing to be done about it, because-- this is the way to Nazareth. There is the city, set in the ancient site, and a new Israeli city above Nazareth--I think of it as Nazareth Heights, but I think it may really be "Upper Nazareth". Development covers so much of the hills--why would I have ever thought that Nazareth, or any other place in Israel, for that matter, would be exempt from it? Later in the day, we visit Cana. The Roman Catholic church there, Franciscan, has an Italianate exterior, and what I think of as a typical Roman Catholic interior. The dome, interestingly, in view of the high proportion of Arab/Palestinian residents, has blood red Crusader crosses in its stained glass. It too is built on Byzantine ruins--but only the foundation of the fourth century building remains. In the basement (crypt? Lower level?) there is a large crude hollowed out stone said to date from Jesus' time. I think that means it might be like the storage jars for the wine at the wedding.
There's a more modern side chapel, which has on one wall a photographic tryptich of wine jars. It reminds me that we are always trying to "update" our message, to make our images "friendly and relateable" or to use a "trendy" communication device (like a blog)--and yet underneath me is the Byzantine ruins, the earlier foundation stones, etc. etc.
