Page 99 - (DK Eyewitness) Top 10 Travel Guide - Israel & Petra

Dead Sea and the Negev ❮❮ 97

Avdat
1
MAP B2 • Route 40 • (08) 655
1511 • Egged bus 392, Metropoline
bus 60 from Be’er Sheva • Open 8am–
5pm (till 4pm Fri and winter) • Adm
• www.parks.org.il
This settlement was founded in the
3rd century BC by the Nabataeans
as a way station on the Spice Route.
Now designated a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, it sits on a hill top
overlooking desert canyons and an
ancient network of irrigation canals.
Many of the ruins here date from Botanical garden near Ein Gedi
Byzantine times, including the
remains of two churches and the middle of the desert, at least as
hundreds of cave dwellings. far as plant life is concerned. Two
gorges, Wadi David and Wadi Arugot,
Be’er Sheva
2 can be walked along (and at some
points splashed through), and ani-
MAP H3 • Visitor Center:
1 Hebron Rd; (08) 623 4613; open mals, especially ibex and rock hyrax,
8am–5pm Sun–Thu, call in advance can often be spotted. Kibbutz Ein
Described in Genesis (21:22–34) as Gedi, 2 miles (3 km) to the south, has
the place where Abraham dug a well, a fabulous botanical garden and a
or be’er, the “capital of the Negev” lovely hotel (see p116), while Ein Gedi
is home to the main campus of the Health Spa is a fine spot to try mud
innovative Ben-Gurion University of treatments and soak in sulfur pools.
the Negev. The former Governor’s
Masada
Residence, now the Negev Art 4
Museum, and the mosque next This World Heritage Site and
door merit a special visit. Pick up national park towers over the west-
a walking tour map at the Visitor ern edge of the Dead Sea. At the end
Center. A Bedouin market is held of the Jewish Revolt of AD 66–73,
in town every Thursday. almost 1,000 rebels, besieged within
this mountain fortress, killed them-
3 of Rome. After the Romans left, the
Ein Gedi Nature Reserve selves rather than submit to the rule
MAP G5 • Route 90, 35 miles
(56 km) S of Jericho • (08) 658 4285 site was apparently deserted for
• Open summer: 8am–5pm; winter: 200 years, until, in the 5th century,
8am–4pm • Adm • www.parks.org.il; Christian hermits established a
www.ein-gedi.co.il monastery here. The remains of
Fed by several springs, verdant Ein a Byzantine church can still be
Gedi is like a slice of the tropics in seen (see pp30–31).
Masada’s mountaintop viewpoint

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