Wailing Wall, Roman ruins, Sea of Galilee

November 16th

The day began at 5 am - again.  I suppose the call to prayer woke the multitude sleeping on the hostel roof and they decided to start showering and clanking around in the kitchen.  And sleep had come late the prior night as a lady was scrubbing the floors outside our room with a bristly brush at 10:30pm. 

We arrived at the Temple Mount at 7:15 am, got a couple photos of the Wailing Wall.  It's all that's left of the temple destroyed in 66 AD.

The goal was to enter the Dome of the Rock area, but it's closed today!  We know a 4 day muslim holiday starts tomorrow, maybe they have an eve festival with that as well.  too bad for us.  on to the bus station, happy to head towards the north, maybe it won't be 30+ degrees anymore.  (no such luck, smoking hot again today.  our clothes are stained with sweat, my daypack is wet with sweat)

We had a great visit with a girl named Ayana, an Israeli in the military.  Women must complete 2 years, men 3.  She told us how to recognize the different epaulets on their uniforms and we exchanged all sorts of questions.

The security in Israel is something else.  How often have we complained about the heightened security since 9-11.  Well, imagine every time you want to go to worship or to the bus station or to a museum, etc, you have to have your bags checked, scanned and walk through the scanner yourself.  This is every day life in Israel.

The bus was full on the ride to Beit She'an.  The driver was a total jerk, yelling at people every time he opened his mouth, a nasty bugger.  After I got on the bus, he came over to the woman I'd sat next to and was yelling at her and making gestures (which happened to be in front of my face as he shock his hands at her).  She seemed to be defending herself and was in tears.  Would love to know what that was all about.  When we got off the bus two hours later, he was still a great big grouch.

Got to Beit She'an at 12:15 to see the Roman ruins and theatre, the woman behind the desk was kind enough to let us leave our very full and heavy packs there while we toured around.

Beit Shean, in the Northern Jordan Valley, was initially built in 5000-4000 BCE. The Egyptians ruled Beit Shean from the 16th -12th centuries BCE.

the Roman Theatre

I wonder how many people died here as the crowds cheered on.

 On the bus ride here, we drove along the Jordan River.  This seems to be where the food is produced for the country, acre upon acre of green houses with veggies.

18 successive cities have been found at this site.

 400 acres of excavations from the 1st century

The Philistines hung the bodies of King Saul and his sons from the ramparts of the Beit Shean.

King Davidconquered Bet Shean, and it was under Jewish control until 731 BCE, when the Assyrians destroyed the city. Alexander the Greatreestablished the city in the 4th century BCE as a Greek polis.

Jordan River Valley

The hills on the other side of the Jordan River in this photo belong to Jordan.

Another bus and we're in Tiberias.  What a fantastic city on the Sea of Galilee!  The falafel is delicious, they sell slurpees and it's beautiful.  A breath of fresh air after the horrendous smells in the old city.  There were times in the Old City where I abandoned politeness and simply held my nose as I walked along, yes it was that bad smelling.

Our Hostel in Tiberias is called Hagallile, and after some of the places we've stayed, we both walked into our room and said, "wow, this is great!"  and this is not sarcasm.  Here's a few pics of our room:

this room is easily 3x the size of our last hostel room.

they've built a little wooden box around the toilet in our room.

It's not posh, but when you're backpacking, it's fantastic!

Tomorrow we hope to have a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee plus visit Capernum and Nazareth.

Last full day in Jerusalem

November 15th

We began our day by taking the city bus to Hadassah Hospital to see the Chagall  stained glass windows.  No photography is permitted, there are 12 windows for the 12 tribes of Israel.  Here's a website: http://www.casaisrael.com/chagall_windows.htm

view of Jerusalem from Yad Vashem

Next, and with great importance, we visited the Yad Vashem Museum - a history of the holocaust.  We were there for 4 hours, could easily spend an entire day there.  The museum was excellent, very well done and huge.  It's free, which is good because it's an important thing that everyone going to Israel should visit.  Filled with photos, interview from survivors and artifacts, it testifies to life preWW2, during and post.  A piece of history visited by many, all silent, some with tears, forever changed.
I've read much about the holocaust over the years, I've felt it an important thing to know about, perhaps an effort to keep the memory alive of the 6 million who suffered and died in such horror.  And it saddens me to think of the genocides that have taken place since 1945 and the world has stood by and allowed - darfur, kosovo, rwanda, to name a few.

6,000,000 murdered

inside Tower of David (Herod's palace)

Our last stop was the Tower of David Museum which focused on the history of jerusalem.  

Now I sit on our hostel roof top, the sun is setting, the muslim call to prayer has just finished and I'm enjoying the cool breeze.  The hostel sells sleeping-spots on the roof, all numbered.  Easily 30 people sleep up here each night.

designated sleeping spots on roof, all numbered

Taxi drivers here see us with our backpacks and are alway honking at us to see if we want a ride.  I much preferred the  Egyptian way of calling out the window, "taxi, taxi".  The drivers here are also quick to react to other drivers, honking at the slightest wrong move, even when it's obvious that the driver is fixing their error.

Soon I'll go buy some more pastries, have leftovers for supper and pack my bag.  Tomorrow morning we'll visit the Dome of the Rock, then head to the bus station for our trip up to the Roman theatre at Beit She'an, then on to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee for the night.

My trip will soon be over, it's truly has been an opportunity of a life time, I'm so glad.

Nov 14 - Masada, Ein Gedi, Qumran Caves

Nov 14

Today we had a private driver take us to some sites outside of Jerusalem.  I'd had a better sleep last night, though the day began at 5am when the girls in the dorm room across from us started packing their bags (I assume for a flight).

Ein Gedi Nature Reserve

We traveled to Ein Gedi Nature Reserve.  It's quite an odd thing to hear and see a waterfall in this barren, dry, landscape.

 

Qumran Caves

Our first sight-seeing stop was at Qumran.  We explored through the settlement of the Essences and had a view of the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found - yes, these caves do have a great view of the Dead Sea.

 cable car at Masada

We took a cable car up Masada, the mountain top fortress of King Herod.  In 66 AD it was the home of 890 jewish rebels (including families).  In 73 AD, the Romans broke through their strong holds and the men decided to kill their families and themselves rather than have them all become slaves.  Only 2 women and 5 children remained when the Romans entered.  

check out this website for an aerial view of Masada, it's pretty cool.  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Masada1.html

view from the top of Masada 

 Masada

 Masada

King David's tomb

My highlight was the Dead Sea (see my Dead Sea blog post).

Upon our return to Jerusalem, we headed towards Zion Gate and viewed the iconic room identified as the Room of the Last Supper.  Christians over the years have sure enshired a lot of historical sites, it's unfortunate.  A couple minutes away was the Tomb of David.  Last stop was the Chamber of the Holocaust, with photos and artifacts recovered from WW2.  The way the jews were treated is an absolute horror.

Finally, we took to our hostel roof top to cool off and relax  - it was 32 degrees again today.
We found the most excellent bakery in the Chrisitan Quarter, I've had 5 pastries today already and have bought a bag more for lunch tomorrow!

When heading out for supper, we ran into the Nova Scotian we'd met in Eilat.  He's returned from Jordan and is staying near Damascus Gate.  It's been fun running into an assortment of people on the trip.  The Calgarian lady talked our ears off the whole way up and down Mt Sinai, she was alot of fun.  And taking a 3 hr bus and crossing 3 borders with the couple from St. vital was just makes the world feel so small.

The Mount of Olives

Old city street

Tomorrow we take the public bus to Hadassah Hospital - it's supposed to have some great stained glass windows.  Then the Yad Vassem Holocaust museum and hopefully also the Tower of David Museum.  yes, the days are full, and I'm always up before 6 am.  A vacation for me is Not lounging around!

Dead Sea

Nov 14th - the Dead Sea

Floating in the sea was super fun.  10 minutes was more than enough though, especially since cuts burn, as do the private parts!  The dead sea mud is a great mask and moisturizer.  my face felt great after washing off the mud.  It was extremely difficult to get my shoulders under the water to wash them off.

Dead Sea, Israel 

 Dead Sea mud

Old city Jerusalem

November 13, 2010

Today was a long day, on my feet from 7:20 am to 6 pm.  It had been a night of little sleep, a very warm room and uncomfortable bed.  We were supposed to join a tour of the dead sea and region, but not enough people signed up, so it was postponed to tomorrow.  It was really quite a process to find the meeting point.  In the Old City there are no driving streets, the streets and roads are actually narrow stone corridors, which took us a while to navigate.

Then we exited the Old City via Damascus Gate.  

Damascus Gate

shoe store outside Damascus Gate

Jerusalem is full of curvy streets which made it hard to know which way to turn.  Plus, the free map we were given has the english names of streets labeled on it, but the street name signs, when we could find them, were in the hebrew spelling.  We passed many jewish people on their way to synagogue, quite a variety of sects, men with the curls by their ears, men in tall black hats, men in black cowboy-looking hats.  How their hat looks is dependant on the synagogue they attend.  We inquired for directions from quite a number of  people and finally found the meeting place exactly on time.  what a relief!  Turns out the tour organizer was 15 minutes late.  At least we know where to meet him tomorrow.  We quickly adapted to plan B for the day.

Our first stop was the Garden Tomb, arriving before it was opened for the day.  A british man was our tour guide and we joined a lovely group from Washington State.  The guide began with showing us the the actual tomb, which is highly regarded as the burial site of Jesus.  Sitting in thie quiet garden, looking on at the open tomb as the guide declared Jesus risen and our american friends shouting "amen" was very impacting.  I did go inside and saw the spot where they believe Jesus had been laid.  Not quite like the children's bible story book illustrations.

The Garden tomb

the body was laid at the far end

In the garden tomb area

Golgotha

Next we saw the rock of golgotha.  Jesus was not crucified on a hill but rather along the roman road, to be on display as a warning to others.  This road was there, right below the rock of the skull (golgotha).  As we moved around the Garden, another group entered the tomb area and they were singing songs of praise.  It was..............very moving.

We joined in on a free 3 hour walking tour of the Old City, led by a Jerusalem native.  The first stop was the Tower of David, named by the Crusaders, who didn't know their history very well.  It was actually built by Herod, it was his palace.

Tower of David

Our next stop was the Armenian Quarter.  Approximately 2000 people live in this quarter of the old city now.  The men I see walking around with the pointy hats are Armenian, the pointiness of the hat to represent Mount Ararat where the ark landed after the flood.  When the Crusaders took back jerusalem, they were asked to stay to help protect the city from the muslims.  They stayed and married Armenian women, this is how they were given their own quarter.

Armenian Quarter

Next we visited the Jewish Quarter, home to 5000 people today.  After the 1958 war, the jewish quarter was nearly totally destroyed by the Jordanians.  After the 6 day war in 1967, the jewish quarter began to be rebuilt.

I did go to the Wailing Wall.  I had to cover my shoulders and legs to approach the wall.  Since it was the sabbath, no photography was permitted.  There was also security with metal detector to pass through beforehand.

The Christian Quarter has 5000 people today, the Muslim Quarter has 35,000 people.  The markets of the muslim quarter were bustling with people in the morning, I found it quite overwhelming.  It seemed to me that muslim, jew and christian coexist very peacefully in the Old City.

busy Old City streets

Jaffa Gate

We passed through the Lion's Gate to hike up the Mount of Olives, passing by a jewish burial site where plots are still being sold at $40,000 each.

jewish cemetary

Dome of the Rock

tree in the Garden of Gethsemane

view from the summit of the Mount of Olives

 The view from the top of the Mount of Olives is pretty great.  This is where Jesus ascending into Heaven and where the jews believe the messiah will return to.

Next we headed back to the Old city - did I mention it was 30 degrees today?!  

We walked the stations of the cross along Via Dolorosa.  Visited the pools of bethesda and tried to enter some churches, but was not permitted entry because I was wearing shorts.  sheesh, Christ accepted prostitutes, I doubt he would care less if I'm wearing long pants or not.  "it is for freedom that Christ has set you free" (Gal 5:1) 

The church of St Anne is outside of the bethesda pool area.  It looks European.  High ceilings.  there were 7 German tourists in there singing a hymn and their voices of echo filled the whole church, it was beautiful.

part of the pool of Bethesda, built after Jesus' time

Pool of Bethesda at Jesus' time

I had to pass through the markets again on my way back to the hostel, and I'm such a sucker when it comes to shopping there, so I spent some more shekels, I've asked Michelle to keep me out of the markets now!

Tomorrow we go to Massada, the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi Nature Reserve and visit the caves of the Qumran scrolls.  I'll be up at 6:30 again after 10 hours of walking today.