Nazareth Travel Guide

Nazareth, a small and insignificant village in the period of Jesus, has now grown to be a modern city that serves as a regional economic center. It is the largest Arab city in Israel with a population of 60,000 most Christians and Muslims, living side by side in harmony.

Though Nazareth is one of the most important Christian holy sites in the world and some 1 million tourists and pilgrims visit this city every year. It’s not a city that gets to you. Most tourists stay just for a few hours, just long enough to visit the religious and historical sites. In the past few years however large public budgets have been invested to establish an appropriate infrastructure for the tourists and pilgrims who visit Nazareth's sites yearly.

To make the city more attractive, it underwent a facelift that changed the appearance of the city more to the expectations of these visitors, including a reconstruction of the village in a way it might have looked in the days of Christ. The scarce monuments from the beginning the city still possesses are being polished and made accessible, to facilitate exploitation and a lot of squares and roads are being refurnished to finally make an end to the renown eternal traffic jam.

The city has been inhabited continually, but did not gain any significance till the 5th century, when the first church of the Annunciate was invested. This and the moved history of Israel and it’s inhabitants has lead to the fact that there’s little saved from the early days of Christianity. Most of the archeological finds consist of caves, cisterns and grain storage bins, which may be disappointing, but not unexpected from a small village.

If you want to experience what the city looked like 2000 years ago, it might be interesting to checkout one of the many villages around in the horseshoe shaped Jezreel Valley. Less known but very interesting are the 19th century Venetian-style homes that have ceiling frescoes and red tile roofs. For those who come to find a stable with an ox, donkey and some sheep, the city might be a bit of a disappointment, but for those who interested in a lively and exotic Middle Eastern town, Nazareth has a lot to offer.