07-05-2011
Nazareth is renowned as the childhood home of Jesus and an important pilgrimage site of Christianity and tourists, coming to visit the Basilica of the Annunciation and also bustling mini-metropolis. Nazareth is a stone-paved street with Ottoman-era mansions, and in recent years, has been reinventing itself as a sophisticated cultural and culinary destination. Nazareth is a stunning location, right in the middle of the Lower Galilee (about 15 miles west of the Sea of Galilee), makes it a beloved stop on many tourists’ routes.
Nazareth, which began as a small Jewish village about 2,000 years ago, became a stronghold of Christianity in the Byzantine period, just a few hundred years later. During that period the name of Nazareth spread far and wide, and the yearnings to see the place where the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ had lived turned the city into a popular pilgrimage site. These visits led to the building of the city’s first church – the Church of the Annunciation at the traditional site of Joseph and Mary’s home. Many more churches have been built throughout the city, and were destroyed and rebuilt with the changes in Muslim and Christian rule over the centuries. In the 19th century Nazareth attracted renewed interest and Christians returned to live in this city and rebuilt churches and monasteries.
