Day 9 - Return to Ben Gurion Airport
0:00-1:45 Cross West Jerusalem
1:45 Nephtoah - a site mentioned in the boundary between the territories of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
2:50 Upper Sorek Valley
5:05 Kiriath Jearim ("Village of the Forest") - Also know as Baalah
8:05 The Shephelah - "Lowlands". I recommend coming back and exploring further - this is a very important Biblical region. The Shephelah (pronounced Sh'felah), between the Judean highland and the coastal plain, is made up of low, scrub-covered hills and broad, open valleys, particularly where streams from the hill country pass east-to-west on their way to the sea. An important feature of the Shephelah is the Judean moat, a north-south trending valley at the base of the central range. It provided protection to Judah and an important zone of internal movement. You can see the moat here, heading southward. If you travel southward in the moat, you'll encounter the Sorek Valley with Beth Shemesh at the moat end and Ekron where the valley breaks out onto the coastal plain. You'll recognize those two places in the story of the Philistines returning the Ark to Israel. Continue south along the moat and you hit the Valley of Elah, with Socoh at the moat end and Gath at the coastal plain end - both associated with the story of David and Goliath. There are more valleys and Bible stories further south, but we'll save them for another trip. Just a final note - the moat is here because of an exposure of soft, chalk limestone. That geologic formation is characterized by caves, natural and man-made. So, in this region, we have the cave at Makkedah where the five Canaanite kings defeated by Joshua took refuge. Here also is the cave of Adullum where David took refuge from Saul and built his private army. At Beth Guvrin, an amazing complex of caves can be found. The same geologic formation on the other side of the central ridge provided the soft chalky limestone used by the Romans to build the ramp up the sides of Masada. The caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were found are in the same formation.
9:45 Emmaus (Nicopolis)
9:45 Latrun - site of Crusader castle, Trappist monastery and location of three major battles during the 1948 War.
10:20-15:40 Sidetrip: Valley of Aijalon - this valley, cutting deep into the central mountain range, was an important invasion route. At its northeast end is a continuous ridge to the top of the Benjamin Plateau. In times past, it was protected by Upper and Lower Beth Horon, two cities the Bible records as being built up by the nation's kings. Joshua fought the Caananites down it, Saul and Jonathan drove the Philistines out of the hill country down it. The Biblical narrative seems to point to Aijalon as the place where Saul was going to have Jonathan killed for eating honey.
16:45 Mini Israel
21:45 The Coastal Plain
24:55 Ben Gurion Airport