The Old City of Jerusalem

Today was all about the sights of Jerusalem.

Started by going up Mt Scopus to get a great view of Jerusalem, and orient ourselves for the day ahead, then down the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane. Whilst none of the olive trees in the garden are 2000 years old, of course, there are some that are about 900 years old which is pretty impressive. As our guide said, you can always tell the old olive trees. They are like men - they get fat with age, and after 4 weeks of hotel food, who am I to argue? The garden is fairly large, and built on two sides of a rather steepish valley or gully. It is now bisected by a large road, but you can get the idea of what it was like back then. The Church of the Agony in the garden is built over the rock where Jesus supposedly spent the night in prayer.

Then it was in to the Old City, on foot of course, via the Dung Gate, which takes you directly to the Western (Wailing) Wall where we had some time to watch, and visit the wall if we wished. We had the pattern down by now - in churches it's hats off, and in synagogues and other holy Jewish places it was hats on. Being a Jewish holy area, it was also segregated with a fence between the sexes.

A wander through the twisted and narrow streets of the Old City brought us to the start of the Via Dolorosa, and the 14 stations of the cross. It seems that it became impossible to walk the 14 original stations of the cross during various periods over the last 2000 years, as many of the stations were outside the walls in the garden and other places controlled by foreign powers or other religions, so they kind of moved them and redefined them so that they were all inside and accessible to those in the Catholic church. Now three of the fourteen are places where He stumbled, and there are other perhaps more important stations that we don't visit, but there are still the required 14.

The last few of the stations were in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - built over the place where Jesus was supposedly crucified, prepared for burial, and buried. The spot of the crucifixion is now the tenure of the Greek Orthodox church as a result of the 1957 agreement that carved up all of the holy places in Jerusalem amongst the various churches and saw every last inch allocated to somebody, but I can assure you that the crucifixion site is not remotely like it originally was 2000 years ago. Whilst Joseph's cave has long been chipped away and taken home in pieces by pilgrims eager for a souvenir, there was another genuine tomb under the church that we could actually enter to see what it was like. Seems that the tradition is to bury the body in a sarcophagus and, on the first anniversary, reopen it to remove the bones, which would be the only remaining pieces, for burial in the tomb along with the bones from other family members.

After a break for lunch at one of the cafes, we walked just outside the Old City walls through the Zion Gate to Mount Zion and the Room of The Last Supper, which I'm sure has been built and rebuilt a few times since Jesus time, as it has been used amongst other things as a Muslim temple over the intervening years.

Last on the list to visit was the close-by Dormition Abbey where the catholics believe that Mary fell asleep and was taken to heaven, though there are other churches around the world that share that particular claim. It was interesting to see icons of Mary and the twelve disciples in the abbey, instead of Jesus and the disciples.

That brought the seven day tour to an end, but we didn't board the bus back to the hotel with the others, being mid afternoon, but rather went for a walk around the top of the walls of the Old City, enjoying the view. We saw the Dome of the Rock from several good vantage points - I didn't realise that it was so close to the Wailing Wall, and we also saw, on a hill outside the city, a view of the building supposedly on the spot where Jesus ascended to heaven, though it's undergoing renovation so it looks a bit odd.

Wandered into the Jewish Quarter for a hot chocolate, and a sit in the afternoon sun, until an annoyed waiter approached us. I thought he was annoyed that we were sitting at his table without buying his food but, no, he was annoyed because my drink contained milk, and that I had my cup on his table that was for meat products. Didn't guess that one.

Finally a walk back to the hotel, and a nap before tea. I'm exhausted from being got up early and marched around, but it's better than the alternative of being back at work in the 43 degree heat of Melbourne.