Israel packs a wallop. Not speaking militarily here, but a sensory wallop.

The scene: We arrive at the new Terminal 3 at Ben Gurion Airport, which is sleek and very big. Israeli immigration and passport control, once a fairly grueling version of "20 Questions" ("Who are you visiting? What's your relationship to them?") is now skipped in favor of what I assume is the mother of all computer data bases, so the whole process is very brief and bloodless. One presumes it is less brief and bloodless for a select few.

Out of the terminal through a covered passageway into the rental car garage, and minutes later in a somewhat over-used Subaru we're getting on Highway 1, a six lane freeway heading to Jerusalem. The road signs are in three languages - English, Hebrew and Arabic, but aside from that difference you could just as easily be getting on I-5 somewhere in the California central valley, from the looks of the landscape. Other drivers pilot their cars in the manner of other Mediterranean folk - i.e. a combination of machismo and… more machismo I guess. But I digress.

After passing Latrun, a fort contested bitterly during the Israeli War of Independence, the road climbs into the hills, passing preserved hulks of armored cars and other vehicles wrecked in said war, as a reminder of where you are. The road narrows and climbs through a canyon; traffic thickens as you twist your way up to the crest of the hills, whereupon the divided road ends and you're in big-city traffic, creeping toward Golgotha. Like the canyon walls next to the hilly freeway, all is golden - the buttery sandstone of the buildings, the early evening sun throwing long shadows everywhere… Jerusalem of Gold.

We're in Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv because during the summer the seafront hotels in TA only accept bookings for several days minimum, and since we're heading to the Galilee the next day we can't find a decent place except in Jerusalem. Our hotel is okay, no more, but it's only for one night. By the time we get settled in and make some phone calls it's close to closing time at the hotel café, so we have a light supper and crash.

Next morning we enjoy a better-than-average hotel breakfast (hotel breakfasts in Israel are among the best anywhere, so "better-than-average" is saying a lot.) Then we are to meet with one of my wife's several cousins who live in Israel, and have a non-lunch (too close to breakfast) with him and his mother, who's visiting from rainy Yorkshire. This side of the family has been enduring some hard times - car accidents injuring the cousin's pregnant daughter (all okay) and the recent death of his dad, hence his mum's visit. Still, it's great to see them and catch up, then it's time for us to head north to see the other set of cousins (different side of the family) - this being the central purpose of our visit. They too have had some serious health crises, and we're there partly to offer whatever support we can, consistent without being under foot.

They live on the first kibbutz, founded almost 100 years ago. It sits at the point where the Jordan River exits the Sea of Galilee to begin its brief journey to the Dead Sea, and one of the business lines operated by the kibbutz is a baptismal site with a near-permanent collection of tour buses bringing Christians to be immersed in the river. Bananas, Baptisms and machine tool-making - a thoroughly 21st Century kibbutz.

But I digress again.

The wallop I mentioned is mostly due to the small size and historic density of Israel. It is the land of the bible, and a land of aggressive drivers, and a place where McDonalds signs hover on the hilltops above the minarets of an Arab village.

The fast road to the Galilee (Highway 6, not the road up the Jordan Valley - which I was going to use but as usual got turned around by one-way streets and poor signage in Jerusalem) runs through the central part of the country. About 40 miles before Tiberias, the toll freeway ends and continues as a very busy 4-lane highway into the hills, past several Arab villages noteworthy for orange houses, numerous minarets, and lots of car repair shops with signs in Hebrew and Arabic advertising (I presume) cheap oil changes and fender repair for testosterone-afflicted drivers.

Over the crest of the hills and down into a broad valley. Traffic thickens.

The traffic starts congealing as it moves toward a left-turn lane at a traffic light at the bottom of the hill. The left turn lane is for Megiddo.

The old name for the valley, you see, is the Plain of Armageddon.

Turn right instead at the light and you're heading to Jenin, a particularly unfriendly Palestinian Authority stronghold.

The left turn lane also gets you to Nazareth, an Arab town famous for its carpenters.

Go straight across the Plain (aka the Valley of Jezreel) and you presently arrive at Mount Tabor, a bit later the Sea of Galilee, then the Mount of Beatitudes, and eventually, Lebanon. It's like Sunday school on speed.

At our hotel in Tiberias that evening, we look out over the water of the lake to the Golan Heights beyond. (I believe we're closer to Damascus than we are to Jerusalem, and we're only two hours from the Old City.) Dinner is on the lakefront at a falafel stand, in the presence of a number of Christian pilgrims but mainly the many thousands of resident Orthodox Jews, men dressed in black and the women all pushing prams, taking in the soft (still quite warm but not stifling) evening air - eating ice creams or shopping for schlock in the impromptu street market. Various waterfront cafes offer "St Peter's Fish" suppers - a local species which proves that bones can swim. Whatever rocket damage that was sustained by Tiberias during last year's war seems to have repaired.

I don't know of any place where the human story is more vivid. Pious pilgrims and black-hatted men eating Gelato. Roman ruins next to mosques next to Mickey D's. Teenage soldiers on weekend leave toting their weapons to the espresso stands. Freeways to Armageddon, roadside relics of wars (and scant peace; ) and organic date "honey" that would make any Whole Foods manager weep with envy, pink-domed Greek Orthodox churches surrounded by banana trees. The sounds of Hebrew, Russian, English, Arabic, some sort of (I think) Ethiopian Aramaic, French, Spanish, Italian… Hezbollah over the hills and Jenin down the road, past the Bougainvillea flowers, the banana plantations and the water park. Wallop.