The Sea of Galilee is a lake with an outsized presence: freshwater, lying far below sea level, fed by the Jordan and held between basalt slopes with the Golan escarpment rising on its eastern side. It has been fished for millennia, and fishing boats still work its waters, while the surrounding plain supports intensive agriculture. Its fame, however, is textual: this shoreline is the principal setting of Jesus's Galilean ministry, and the sites strung along the northern shore — Capernaum, Tabgha, the Mount of Beatitudes — make it one of the most visited landscapes in Christian pilgrimage. The same shore carries synagogue remains, ancient harbours and towns that document Jewish life in the region across many centuries. The lake is also a strategic freshwater resource, and its management has long been a matter of national and regional consequence. Filmed in 4K from the water, the air and the hills, the programme moves between natural history, archaeology, religious geography and the working life of the lake — sunrise over the Golan, nets hauled at dawn, and the storms that rise fast on water enclosed by hills.
