Travel Tips

"For it was situated upon a rough ridge of a high mountain, with a kind of neck in the middle: where it begins to ascend' it lengthens itself, and declines as much downward before as behind, insomuch that it is like a camel in figure..."
Josephus Flavius, The Jewish Wars IV:1

Gamla joined the revolt against the Romans in 66 CE and was destroyed by the Romans in 67 CE. It was never reconstructed and it was lost and forgotten for 1900 years. It was rediscovered in 1968. Excavations found amazing discoveries like remnants of the wall , the impressive synagogue, hundreds of ballista balls, thousands of arrowheads and nails that had been prepared for the siege.

See also Masada.

There are several trails to choose at Gamla.
1. The Ancient Trail - to Gamla, length 1 km, for experienced walkers. Steep path. I hiked that path with Gabi soon after my first visit to Gamla.
2. The Vultures' Trail -Gamla Lookout Point, Vulture Observatory and Dir-Qeruh, 600 meters round trip on a ring path, for easy walking.
3. The Dolmen trail, leading to the Gamla Falls, length 1.5km, an easy walk.
4. The Daliyot Falls Trail, 3.5km, an easy walk.
If you want to see it all, you can easily spend a day there!
We arrived early morning and chose the trails #2 and #3.

..you can see many dolmens. They are megalithic structures. Megalith = a structure that is built from immense stone slabs. The dolmens here date back to 4000 years ago. There are around 700 dolmens around Gamla. They were burial edifices for nomadic tribes that roamed the Golan Heights during the Bronze age.

... is very beautiful there. The best time to visit is the spring time when you can see thousands of flowers blooming, Mt Hermon with snow and birds celebrating the spring.

The largest nesting colony of birds of prey in Israel is here! Most of the Griffon Vultures of Israel nest here - over 40 pairs.
There are also few pairs of Egyptian Vultures, Short-Toed Eagles and a pair of Bonelli's Eagles and a pair of Eagle Owls that also nest in the cliffs of the Gamla Stream. We saw many vultures but didn't manage to take pictures. One vulture came to see us from about 5 meters distance, stared at us and flew away.
There is another colony of Griffon Vultures in Hai Bar Carmel.

Our walk went around a deep canyon with Israel's tallest waterfall - 51 m high. Spectacular views!

We were there on a sunny spring morning and saw many flowers.

Flowers everywhere!