If you stand on the top of Tel Hazor on a clear day, the view is of the Hula valley to the north and the hills of Upper Galilee to the west, with the snow-capped hump of Mount Hermon, in winter, sitting at the far end. The tel itself is a vast, flat-topped mound, the largest ancient site in Israel's north, rising out of the fields near Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar. It is what archaeologists call a tel, a hill made of the layers of cities built one on top of another over thousands of years.
Hazor was one of the great Canaanite cities of the Bronze Age, with a large lower city as well as the high mound, and it appears in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts and in the Bible, where it is described as destroyed by Joshua. Excavations have found a palace, temples, a huge water system and cuneiform tablets, and later layers show the city fortified under Israelite kings, before the Assyrians destroyed it in 732 BC. It was listed by UNESCO in 2005 along with Megiddo and Beersheba.
The ride here is on good main roads. Route 90 runs the length of the Jordan rift, through the Hula valley, where in winter thousands of cranes and other migrating birds gather in the wetlands, and the climb to Safed on Route 89 is a good road with a series of bends and views down to the Sea of Galilee. The Golan Heights to the east are a long climb with open views, and in spring the fields are carpeted with wildflowers. Summer is hot and dry in the valley and cooler on the hills, and winter can be wet and cold.
For fuel, Rosh Pinna, a few kilometres away, has stations and cafes, and the city of Safed above it is a place of old synagogues, artists' quarters and winding lanes, where cheese and hot drinks are easy to find. The site itself has shade only in small amounts, so take a hat and water, and allow time to walk the mound.