Nazareth was the place that angel Gabriel first appeared to Virgin Mary to announce that she was pregnant with Jesus. Jesus apparently grew up around this area. Only the Gospels mentioned Nazareth's existence so our tour guide said that there's been a lot of scholarly debate over Nazareth's actual location. Some even say that this particular area isn't even where it is today!
First, we went to the Church of Annunciation, the Greek Orthodox church. Here is the courtyard, lined with beautiful paintings of Jesus and Virigin Mary. The tour guide told us a very interesting fact- old paintings used to protray Joseph (Jesus's father) as a much older man to ward of any impressions that he had any sexual relations with Mary. Now, contemporary artists paint him as younger man who wouldn't look much older than Mary as a way of accepting the fact that Joseph was Jesus's father.
Artists all over the world contributed to this amazing gallery of paintings. A lot of them came from Europe and Asia, and a few from South America. I thought the Korean and Japanese ones were the most beautiful.
Then we went inside the lower gallery of the church. This church can comfortably hold at least 10,000 people, both in upper and lower floors. Also this is the third church to be erected- there were three others and this one was built in 1967. The previous ones were built in the Byzantine and Crusader eras. The lower gallery is significant as it was believed that Mary dwelled here.
The stained windows were indeed very beautiful. My camera seems to be handling indoors pretty well. Now, we go upstairs...
Inside the tower part (from the above picture of this one)
The upper floor
After touring the main parts of the church, we headed down to the basement where supposedly Joseph resided and worked in his carpentry shop. The church was built in 1914.
Inside St. Joseph Church
After the tour of the Church of Annunciation, we walked through the Old City of Nazareth to visit other holy sites. We walked through a small bazaar to reach the Synagogue Church. The Crusaders built it in 12 AD. It was believed that this building sat atop the original location of where Jesus first learned, prayed, and preached. It's located next to the Greek Catholic church and run by it.
We walked some more through the Old City to reach the White Mosque. We heard the blares calling for praying. We went inside the mosque and saw men and boys hanging about and praying. The site was bult in late 18th century/early 19th century and thus Nazareth's oldest Islamic holy site. The mosque’s first trustee, Sheikh Abdallah al-Fahum, gave the mosque its name to mark the end of the Ottoman Governor al-Jazzar’s bloody rule. White was chosen to symbolise a new era of purity, light and peace to be enjoyed between the faiths in Nazareth.
Then we meandered towards a famous hostel, Fauzi Azar Inn, which gave us a great view of Nazareth from its 3rd floor lobby. The place was formerly a mansion. 
Actually, Nazareth currently has a lot of old mansions still standing with beautifully painted ceilings by reowned artists from Italy and Lebanon(which from the outside, we could not see) and marbled floors. They were all built during the Ottoman Empire, allowing the wealthiest to live in a prosperous area.
Let's continue our walking tour through the Old City. I was getting pretty tired and hot (I was drinking water!) but the sun was beginning to set a bit in the sky, cooling things off slightly.
underneath it, spring water provided the city with water.
After the tour, we had about 45 minutes to explore Nazareth. We weren't allowed to stray very far (well not everyone knew Arabic and many had limited Hebrew speaking skills). I tagged with Cristina and others. I met a girl from Czech Republic and another one from Bulgaria, which was really cool. I also met a black girl, who is beginning her study abroad in Israel. The girls wanted to find a shuk. We didn't exactly find any (other than the bazaar) but the Bulgarian girl found "Matook Ha-Shalom" (Sweet Peace), a huge baklava shop. I was in heaven. I love baklavas and was so excited to see it. I haven't found any in Haifa thus far (well I haven't wandered in the Arab neighborhoods). The guy was so generous. I realized that he didn't know any English, only Arabic and Hebrew. So I spoke in Hebrew that I wanted to buy some baklava. He offered me a piece and told me to try it. He began offering pieces to other people in my group. He was so cheerful. Then he took out the tray to load my baklava on. After putting on several varieties of my choice, he put in two more of a variety that I didn't pick. I said that I didn't ask for that... then he took a piece from that bunch and gave me it to try. It was all good- I was getting hungry! So I ended up buying 30 sheklim worth of delicious baklava... 
This is what it looks like on the other side of Haifa, towards center of Israel (Haifa is on the other side of these mountains). Hard to believe that it's possible to get out of Haifa into northern Israel!
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