An ancient Roman era main street in Tzipori National Park.

© RnDmS/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Tzipori National Park

Top choice


In ancient times, Tzipori was a prosperous and well-endowed city with stone-paved roadways (you can still see the ruts left by Roman wagons), a sophisticated water-supply system (you can walk through part of the underground aqueduct), a marketplace, bathhouses and a 4500-seat theatre. Today, the star attraction is a mosaic portrait of a contemplative young woman nicknamed the Mona Lisa of the Galilee, discovered inside the (now air-conditioned) remains of a Roman villa.

Two seven-minute films provide fascinating background on the site: one at the park entrance, the other in the 5th-to-7th-century synagogue (air-conditioned), whose mosaic floor is decorated with a beautiful Zodiac circle. The whole site is wheelchair accessible.

It was in Tzipori, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE – a generation or two after the Bar Kochba Revolt (132–135 CE) against Rome – that Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi is believed to have redacted the Mishnah (the earliest codification of Jewish law). A bit later on, Tzipori scholars contributed to the Jerusalem (Palestinian) Talmud.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

2. Basilica of Jesus the Adolescent

3.1 MILES

Built between 1906 and 1923, this neo-Gothic church, with commanding views of Nazareth, has a clean, almost luminescent limestone interior whose delicate…

3. Cana Catholic Wedding Church

3.15 MILES

This green-domed Franciscan church, built in the late 1800s, stands on the site where Catholics believe Jesus performed the wedding miracle. An ancient…

5. Moskubiya

3.21 MILES

Built in 1904 as a Russian pilgrims hostel, this imposing structure now houses a police station.

6. Ancient Bathhouse

3.23 MILES

When Elias Shama and his Belgian-born wife Martina set about renovating their shop in 1993, they uncovered a network of 2000-year-old clay pipes almost…

7. Cave of the 40 Holy Monks

3.25 MILES

Under the compound of the Greek Orthodox Bishopric, this network of caves is named after 40 monks believed to have been martyred here by the Romans in the…

8. White Mosque

3.34 MILES

Built in the late 1700s by Sheikh Abdullah Al Fahum – his tomb can be seen through a glass door off the sanctuary – this mosque is known for its long…