Home and the Epilogue

Day 7

We got a wake up call at 4.30am but they might as well have not bothered as I don't think any of us got much sleep.  The coach was waiting so after a quick coffee, we piled in.  We then waited half an hour with no information until the guide finally arrived with her suitcase as she has finished for the season and was catching the same flight home as us.  Bit annoying though.

There were three security barriers to pass with lots of questions to answer and the guide told us not to mention that we had been to Bethlehem (in Palestine) unless we were asked.  By this time we were running late so little time to shop for duty free and get rid of the remaining shekels.  On the plus side the flight was on time.

So what was the consensus on the tour?  We have all really enjoyed it.  It has been very hectic and we are all tired after early starts and little rest during the day but it was also instructive and fun.  The guide was excellent, extremely knowledgeable and she had very good presentational skills.  She was also 8 months pregnant!  The names and places I have read about since I was a child came back to me and seem to fit together better and make more sense but you need to use all your powers of imagination.  I had thought for example that the site of the crucifixion was as described in the hymn, There is a green hill far away, without a city wall.  In fact, the accepted site is very much within the walls and less that a stone's throw to the burial cave.  Also, there are no neat little flat topped, white houses with staircases going up the outside like you see on Christmas cards.  Everything of significance has been built over many times and nothing much remains of the original except rocks and small caves.  Was I naive to expect something different?  What does remain and is very much alive, is the fervour and belief of all those visiting the shrines.  So much impromptu singing, masses conducted and private worshipping from quiet chanting to loud repeating of a pastor's comments from the large groups of African pilgrims. 

And Jerusalem itself was not quite what I expected.  Ancient, old, modern, new, Israelis, Jews (which is not the same thing) Muslims, Christians, Armenians, Greek Orthdodox, Copts, monasteries, synagogues, mosques, churches all huddled up cheek by jowl, elbowing for their own space. Inside and outside the old city, Jerusalem is built on lots of rounded mounts so you are upping and downing all the time.  The climate is great for us Brits.  We have had a couple of very hot days and the rest sunny and warm with blue skies, though not on our day in Bethlehem when there was a strong and cool breeze.  Prices are reasonable (though not in the American Colony Hotel of course!) especially in the Muslim areas and you can away haggle them down if you want to.

In the end, it is one of those places you must see for the wealth and diversity of its history but probably once is enough, as there are so many other fascinating places on Earth.

I personally am fancying the Great Migration in Kenya and a cruise through the Panama Canal and I will in all probability be doing my blog, if you have not been bored rigid by this one.  Bye for now from the Famous Four.

A last look at Jerusalem, the room of the Last Supper, King David's Tomb and the Cardo and shopping

TDay 6

Our tour is officially over and we have a day at leisure.  Sandra and Lynn decide to have a lie in and the go back to the American Colony Hotel for lunch and to use their pool.   Carol and I and the rest of the group take up the guide's offer of more sightseeing and shopping time.  

Our first stop is the Church of the Visitation,  when Mary went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth.  Both women were pregnant and as they embraced, both babies quickened.  The church is beautifully decorated with frescos but again, not particularly old and an American pastor was holding a service for his group of pilgrims doing the Holy Land tour as well.  We have seen them at other sites.  It is strange how masses or services are carried out impromptu, except at the Greek Orthodox churches where as I said, the priests are very stern.  The church is in a beautiful peaceful area which translates as the Spring of the Vineyard and it is green and fertile all around.  Overlooking this church is another smaller one which houses the rock where Elizabeth is said to have hidden John when Herod's men came round to kill all the baby boys.  In the courtyard of the church the Magnificat is written on mosaic plaques in dozens of languages

The sculpture depicting Mary and Elizabeth meeting in the courtyard of the Magnificat

The Magnificat in English

Back to Jerusalem old city and we passed the Vad Hashem memorial again and this time we could see one of the wooden railway carriages used to transport Jews, brought here from a concentration camp.

We entered the city by the Zion Gate which is covered in bullet holes acquired during the 6 Day War in 1967 when Jordan held power inside the city. This gate now leads into the Jewish quarter which was closed yesterday because of the Sabbath but open today.  

Zion Gate with bullet holes  You can see drivers who are foolish enough to take their car into the old city, have to make a very tight 90 degree turn, ( to stop invaders on horseback charging in)

We walked along the Cardo which was the main colonnaded street in the old city in Roman times 2000 years ago.  It is in ruins now but at least 7 or 8 metres below modern street level.  Above it are shops and houses.  The name Cardo signifies that it was the heart of the city.  There is a wonderful mural depicting street life as it would have been in Roman times.  This area of Jerusalem has a much more modern and affluent air to it.  Property prices are astronomical.  A modest two bedroom apartment would cost roughly £1 million.  Land is at a premium here, hence the building over previous buildings that has gone on over the centuries.  The reason land is so expensive in the Jewish quarter is that it is nearest to the Mount of Olives and that's where the Messiah will come from, so you can get to the front of the queue to get resurrected.  You also get a good view of the grey wall which separates Israel from West Bank Palestine.

The Cardo remains today

The fresco depicting life on the Cardo in Roman times

On then to a building on Mount Zion which is holy to all three major faiths.  On the second floor is the room where Jesus held Passover, the Last Supper.  It is a bare modernised room and I didn't realise I had seen it till I had left.  Of course it is not the real room or even the real building where the Last Supper was held, that went centuries ago. I suppose nowadays we are used to seeing interactive, hologram, animatronic displays etc so the reality can be a bit of an anticlimax.   But below is the Tomb of King David.  Of course no one knows for certain but there is a story that during the 6 Day War, 2 Israeli soldiers hid nearby as the Jordanian soldiers advanced.  They felt certain they would die so they prayed and a small boy with red hair, carrying a harp, came out of the house.  They were convinced then that it was David.  Anyway a tomb about 8 feet long is laid on a catafalque but a screen divides it into two viewing areas.  Men look at the tomb from one side and women from the other.  It is hugely holy to the Jews yet you can touch it and photograph it if you like.  There is also a mosque on the site, hence being a holy place for all three faiths.

King David

King David's Tomb, the women's half

That's about it for the sightseeing.  We went shopping then and soon found that the shops in the Muslim quarter were much cheaper but also the shop keepers were cheerier and more friendly.  That's not to say that the Israelis were unfriendly but they were definitely more reserved and less open to chatting.  We had some great conversations with young men in the scarf shop and the Dead Sea skin products shop, which he assured me was a factory outlet and therefore prices could not be cut - before offering me a discount because I looked like someone he knew and he was robbing himself at that price.   

Interesting facts.  All Israeli young people are conscripted into the army at the age of 18. Boys for 3 years and girls for 2 years.  The army representatives visit schools when the young people are 16 and find out what they are good at so they can be deployed effectively.  Also all conscripts must go to Jerusalem for a cultural tour to learn their heritage.  The young people we spoke to all spoke positively of the experience and certainly we never saw any gangs of drunken or loud youths anywhere. However, young people are leaving Jerusalem because they cannot get work but also because it has become old and very religious.  They go mostly to Tel Aviv which is much younger and cosmopolitan.

 The current Prime Minister Netanyahu has a private residence next to an ice cream parlour and it emerged last year he had spent 80,000 shekels of taxpayers' money on pistachio ice cream. His fat wife immediately went on a serious diet.

Taxation pays for education and a health service.  From the time you contact a doctor you must be given an appointment within 48 hours but you might wait 2 years for surgery

 The first Prime Minister of Israel, Ben Gurion, said that Judaism could be summed up in the sentence, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Is that working?

I would love to tell you about the Mamelukes but I can't remember except they were kidnapped children taken by the Muslims and brought up to fight for them. Information overload. However, here is a fountain that the Mamelukes installed in the old city.  This had been a sarcophagus which they turned upside down to hold the water for the horses to drink from.  Great recyclers.

Well that's it, last night tonight and as we are getting our wake up call at 4.30 am, I think an early night is called for.  I will however write an epilogue tomorrow when I have gathered my thoughts about the whole experience and maybe finally post my photos.

Jerusalem

Day 6

Today we set off early again and drove briefly to the foot of the Mount of Olives which is just outside the old city walls. I was disappointed to see that like many urban areas there was a certain degree of fly tipping.  But we were bound for the Church of the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemene .   Again the church was relatively modern, with amethyst used in the stained glass windows to represent Jesus' suffering.  There was a rock, worn smooth of course by the hands of many pilgrims, in front of the altar and it was a bit of a scrum to get to the front to see it.

The Church of the Agony

The altar and the rocky place where Jesus sat and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemene  before his arrest.

  Outside the church there is a small closed garden with olive trees planted by Popes and other dignitaries.  Opposite and below the old city wall were three layers of graves in the Kidron Valley, Muslim at the top, Christian in the middle and a great swathe of Jewish graves stretching right up the Kidron Valley.  (Apparently they will have run out of land to bury people by 2050 in Jerusalem.). The gate in this wall was always kept closed as it was believed that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem by this gate, resurrecting the dead as he went.  However, this is the gate where the priests sacrificed a goat once a year and threw it over the wall into the Kidron.  The goat took on the sins of the people which were then washed away.  The word scape goat comes from this act though I can't remember what the scape bit means.

The Olive Garden at Gethsemene 

The cemetery opposite Gethsemane 

We drove round the walls to the Jaffa Gate which was and is the main entrance into the old city.  It has 2 arches at right angles to prevent the gate being stormed by invaders on horseback as horses cannot do 90 degree turns at speed. Oddly there is now a larger opening next to the gate to allow in traffic though delivery vehicles and rubbish trucks are like small tractors to get through the narrow streets. 

Jaffa Gate

You step into a paved square with David' s Tower overlooking the walls.  It seems it had nothing to do with David but was a lookout post.  It houses a museum now. 

King David's Tower

The long cobbled roads are also relatively new though there are some Roman paved areas visible but certainly it is not the bedrock that would have been there in Biblical times.  That apparently is several metres lower.  As it was Sabbath, there were no Jewish shops open but the Muslim owned shops continued their trade.  Sadly it is like most tourist areas, full of souvenir shops but if you venture further in, you reach the shops used by locals.  Our guide said that these shops had probably been the same shops handed down through the family for centuries even possibly since Roman times.  Haggling is still compulsory but I have to say even when we didn't buy anything or even show much interest, the shop keepers were on the whole very friendly and welcoming.

Typical streets in the Muslim quarter, cobbled, narrow, steep and slippery.

We walked down the hill to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  This again is a Greek Orthodox Church run by some very scary priests who resembled Rasputin.  As you enter from a small plaza you see immediately the slab of stone where Jesus' body was laid when he was brought down from the cross.  It was washed and anointed, wrapped in a cloth and placed into a cave.  People were kneeling all around it and laying on their hands, foreheads, their babies and candles and icons. 

The plaza outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The stone slab where the body of Jesus was washed.

In the centre of the church,there is a small, circular, pointed building with a beautifully decorated entrance.  There was a small queue winding round but it only took, 20 minutes or so to reach the entrance.  Our guide was amazed by this.  She said at Easter and Christmas pilgrims wait 6 or 7 hours to visit the cave.  You enter by crouching fairly low but this is only the outer part and only 2 orr 3 people can proceed into the cave itself.  It is very small with just a small rock shelf where the body was placed and you can touch it but not take photographs. It was hugely emotional.  Rasputin clapped his hands which meant your time (10 to 15 seconds) was up and you had to crouch your way out again. 

The decoration outside the Sepulchre

I thought that Calvary would be some distance away but I saw another queue climbing some stairs near the slab.  I duly joined the queue and shuffled my way towards another hugely ornate altar with a large rock area underneath. As I got closer I could see that people were disappearing one at a time into a small arch under the altar and there was a circular brass plate with a hole in the middle.  It was Calvary and the place where the cross was erected.  The other name for Calvary is Golgotha, the place of the skull because the rocky outcrop was in the shape of a skull, and so it was.  So the Hill of Calvary was actually overlooking the burial cave.  It seems the Romans chose this site for crucifixions as it was handy for the families to retrieve and bury the bodies and saved them the bother.

The altar over the site of the cross. A nun is just about to do her crouch.

We had lunch at a roof top restaurant with great views of the Golden Dome shrine which was built

on the site of the Temple and the El Ax Mosque where there had been trouble the previous few nights.

A devout nun reading a religious tract.  Oh no sorry, it's Carol with a guide book

Trying out the local cakes

After lunch we traced the steps of Jesus along the Via Dolorosa although we did it in reverse ie downhill out of respect for our old legs.  Jesus was tried in the Antonian Palace by Pontius Pilate and from there taken to be crucified down a short hill to the Via Dolorosa.  From there, he carried the cross uphill all the way to Calvary.  It's a long walk.  We passed the stations of the cross which are marked with a sign on the walls and usually a shrine has been built into the wall.  At one station there is a stone in the wall which has been dramatically worn down by people putting their hands on to it.  It is said to be the place where Jesus stumbled for the second time and put his hand against the wall while Simon of Cyrene took the cross from him.

The Via Dolosa, the route taken by Jesus, carrying the cross to his crucifixion, filled with the usual tourist tat.

The 5th station of the cross

 We reached the Western Wall which is now at the far end of a wide plaza.  During the war it was bombed and all the houses destroyed near the wall.  The wall is divided into 2 areas.  The larger is for the men, the smaller for the women although the women make up a larger part of the worshippers.  Because it was Sabbath, we could not take photos but we could touch the wall and pray and place messages in cracks if we wanted to.  The wall is the nearest place open to Jews to the site of the old Temple, destroyed centuries ago and replaced with a Muslim shrine.  The politics of this place is so difficult to understand and explain.  The world community would say that Jerusalem is in Palestinian Territory, yet you have to walk through Israeli border control and have your bag searched.  There is constant friction in this West Bank area with the Palestinians angry and resentful that their holiest place, the Mosque El Ax is bounded by the Western Wall.  I found it hard to follow all the arguments and can quite understand why the conflict is so difficult to resolve.

The Israeli checkpoint.  Men and women have to go in the Western Wall area, aka the Wailing Wall, separately.

A word about the Ultra Orthodox Jews.  On the Sabbath we saw many orthodox and ultra Orthodox Jews walking to the synagogues. The ultra orthodox men wear black long coats, sometime black and white striped, with a kind of top hat or a big fur hat like a snare drum. They always wore a hat as they needed to cover their heads so God would not see their impure thoughts.   Apparently, the Jews in Russia were ordered to wear a fox's tail to humiliate them but they turned this around by wearing a fox fur hat as a badge of pride. They cannot wear open toed shoes as the sight of the cleft between their toes may remind them of a woman's private area and inflame them.  They do not shave as per God's commandment and they grow the hair on the sideburn and curl It because they must not put scissors or a razor near the temple which is very close to the brain.  They have 613 strings hanging from a vest under their shirt representing the commandments of God for men.  The Hasidic Jews tuck their trousers into their socks because they like to dance joyfully and don't want to show their legs accidentally.  We saw a Hasidic Jew busking on an electric violin out side the Jaffa Gate.

An ultra orthodox family on Shabat.

Married women must dress soberly in dark colours without any pattern.  They could never wear the colour red as it was associated with being a whore.  Married women also had to cover their hair, as it was thought that men might think of other areas of the female body with hair and get rampant. 

Well that was our tour today and Sabbath will be ending at sunset so we may go out to celebrate it being Saturday night.  In the event we go down the road to the American Colony Hotel.  Great bar and ambiance. Sadly we spend over £100 on cocktails for 4.  Well it is Saturday night!

Saturday night cocktails.  Don't know why Sandra has a white blob on her face.  Maybe it was a spirit warning us of the extortionate bill to come.

The Holocaust Memorial, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Bethlehem

Day 5

Another early departure time, so I found it difficult to get through the usual massive breakfast I feel obliged to have.  There really is everything you could want from porridge and semolina pudding to lasagne and gefilte (?) fish and everything in between, except of course bacon.

Today we went to visit the Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem, entering via the avenue of the Righteous.  These were Gentiles who are honoured for helping the Jews in some way during the Holocaust eg Oskar Schindler.  The memorial building is a long hallway with steeply sloping walls leading to a pointed skylight with nine rooms depicting the stages of the persecution from the creation of ghettos, the confiscation of property, the rounding up of children, the mass shootings and of course the extermination camps.  I think most people are acquainted with the facts and have seen photos but what was particularly moving was the numerous video screens throughout the memorial with survivors giving personal testimony of what they had seen and experienced.  Every year on Holocaust Day at 10am everyone in Israel goes out into the street to observe 2 minutes silence when the siren sounds.  The school children are always dressed in blue trousers and a white shirt is considered a sign of respect.

There is also a separate memorial to the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust.  It is a beautiful place, a dome, completely dark except for mirrors reflecting the candles everywhere.  The name, age and place of birth of each child is read out continuously day and night, every day of the year except Yom Kippur and amazingly, it takes three and a half years to read out the list.

The outside of Yad Vashem.  I didn't take any photos inside.

 On then to the Israel Museum to see the Dead Sea Scrolls.   But in the grounds outside that, there is a huge scale model of the old walled city of Jerusalem.  There was the Temple of 65 AD ( the acronym CE common era is now used to denote AD and BCE before common era to denote BC) two temples of Herod the Great, who being only half Jewish was not allowed in the Temple, the Antonian Tower, garrisoned  by the Romans and the residential areas, poor area with flat roofs near the Kidron Valley, the middle class area with tiled roofs on higher ground and the Roman garrison area.  The place where Jesus was crucified ( top left hand corner) was inside the city walls but outside the Jewish area and located near the burial grounds for the city.  

The scale model of Jerusalem

Explanation of the history of the Temple

The Scrolls were found by a goat herd boy in caves overlooking the Dead Sea.  The climate had preserved them for 2200 years.  They were the entire Old Testament written by a sect, the Iceans, who seemed to live by the same rules as modern Jews and their importance is that it establishes that Jews were living in this land and have a right to it therefore.  Prior to finding the scrolls, the earliest written account of the Old Testament was the Aleppo Codex, copies of which I have seen in the British Library in London.  The museum like many of the places of historical interest, is very sympathetically built.  It was in the shape of a beehive, dark inside, quite plain but a good backdrop to the exhibits.  However you couldn't say that about the city.  The upmarket areas are attractive but the modern parts are utilitarian looking, uniformly rectangular, mostly with flat roofs and in the same shade of concrete grey.  Each roof has solar panels which is compulsory by law.

We drove past the Knesset, the parliament building, which was also nothing to write home about (but I appear to be doing that anyway).  It has recently been extended to accommodate the 8 assistants that each MP has.  Our guide was not complimentary about the Government. 

Two interesting facts.  Jews here are not allowed by their religion to pierce or tattoo the body, except for earrings.  There are no censuses  (censii?) in Israel as God promised Abraham that the children of Israel would as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore so to count the people would be doubting God's word.

At lunchtime we crossed into Palestine into Bethlehem and stopped for lunch at a Bedouin style tent restaurant overlooking the field where the shepherds were keeping watch.  We didn't eat much as we are having a big breakfast and evening meal and so don't need much midday but it did look really good.  We went down then to the shepherds' field.  Legend has it that this is the same field which was owned by Boaz and where Ruth came to glean.  David was a descendant of their marriage and Jesus a descendant of David.  There is a collection of caves in the hillside next to the field and artefacts were found there from the first century.  It also overlooks a hill on the other side of Jerusalem where the shepherds crossed to take lambs to the Temple for sacrifice.

The Shepherds' field.  The line  through the middle is an electrified fence, denoting the border between Israel and the Palestinian West Bank.

There is a church as usual built over the grotto where Mary gave birth to Jesus.  There is a beautiful fresco behind the altar in the Greek Orthodox style.  Sadly the queue to see the grotto was 3 hours long and we didn't have enough time to wait so we went in the neighbouring grotto which was said by the guide to be very similar.  I was disappointed and though I listened to our guide on the headphones provided, I couldn't feel particularly inspired.  I wandered off down a narrow passage which came to an end with a big wooden door but I noticed there were 2 holes in it.  Being nosey, I said unto myself, have a little look.  And there it was, the altar of the grotto.  It was beautifully decorated and people were filing past, some falling to their knees and kissing the ground.  So happy that I stumbled on this wonderful sight.

The "similar" grotto

The secret passage

The peep hole view of the birth place of Jesus.  You can see the bright colours of the fresco and someone on his knees kissing the ground, actually it's his bottom facing you.

Our guide in Bethlehem was a Palestinian Christian, as our Israeli guide was not allowed to cross into Palestine.  He explained the Palestinian side of the political dispute to us.  One issue was water.  The climate is dry and often there is severe shortage of water as none can get through from Israel.  There is no airport and they are not allowed to fly from Israel, they are not even allowed to cross the border without a special permit.  There is no British embassy, so they need to get into Israel to visit a British embassy to get a visa to visit the UK. But mostly the problem is the Israeli settlements which continue to be built on Palestinian land.  There is a wall between the two parts of Jerusalem in urban areas and an electrified fence in the rural parts.  Sadly the tomb of Rachel which is a holy site for all three religions is now almost hidden between parts of the wall. 

On the coach ride back, there was a big police presence at the Bethlehem crossing.  Some Palestinian youths had started throwing stones at the wall and tourist buses so we had to make a detour to another border crossing which meant that the Sabbath had started by the time we got back to our hotel.  The hotel is next to an ultra orthodox area and we could see the Jewish men in their long black coats and big hats walking down to the synagogue.  No one was driving a car as the roads in that area were closed off for Sabbath.  In the hotel, the food was mostly preprepared casseroles etc although the Christian and Muslim staff continued to work as normal.  Strangely, one of the 4 lifts was designated a Shabbat lift with preset stops at all floors so that Jewish guests could get in and not have to press the floor button which would have been forbidden.

The busy days are taking their toll and we found ourselves heading to bed at 9.30 ish.  No discos tonight then.

The Dead Sea and the tragic tale of Masada

Day 4

Today I was bobbing up and down in the Dead Sea trying to get my legs to touch the bottom and it's really hard.  The weather is very hot and sunny and we were walking down to the beach in our towelling robes at 8.30am.  No one bats an eyelid as everyone is doing it.

The handrail into the Dead Sea.  We didn't use it as we are not old enough.  Carol modelling her dressing gown

Floating in the Dead Sea

View of our hotel from the beach with a bit of advice.  So we did.

We left the Dead Sea Resort mid morning and drove a matter of twenty minutes along the desert road on the West Bank of the sea to Masada.  I remember vaguely seeing a documentary on it but had not taken in all the details.  You go up to a rock plateau by cable car and get a fantastic view of the Dead Sea and the desert and hills on the way up but you are not prepared for the vast expanse of ruins at the top.  

From the cable car

Herod the Great built two enormous palaces as well as open areas the size of many football pitches.  You really can't get a true impression of the size of the plateau unless you see an aerial photo. The main northern palace has spectacular viewing platforms jutting out from the rocks.  I cannot imagine how these were built.  Even though it is in the desert and on top of a rock mountain, the complex was supplied with water from reservoirs holding enough water for a thousand people for a year.  Herod had built dams to divert the rainwater from flash floods draining  down the mountains into aqueducts which entered the mountain through holes made when rocks were mined to build the palace.  They grew their own fruit and vegetables and had a dovecote for pigeons which provided meat.  The pigeon dung was used to fertilise the plants. Just brilliantly planned. 

The storeroom, built with aisles like a supermarket

 Herod built it as part of a line of fortifications protecting the country and although he sent his family there, there is no evidence that he actually visited it himself.  It fell into disuse when the Romans conquered the area but was occupied again by the rebels in the last great uprising against them when 200 fighting men and their families numbering another 600 took refuge there.  The Romans systematically put down the uprising in the land and Masada was the last remaining resistance.  They sent 8000 men to sack the fortress.  The Romans set up 8 camps and over 4 years built a ramp up to the fortress walls.  They pushed a battering ram up and pummelled the walls.  The Jews replied with fire arrows which set fire to the battering ram tower but a change in the wind blew the flames on to the wooden gates.  It was over.  The Romans retired for the night to their camps ready to march into the fortress the next day.  However, the Jews held a meeting and their leader sent for all the heads of the families.  He persuaded them that it was better to die as a free Jew than live as a slave.  Now, a Jew cannot commit suicide without losing his chance of resurrection at Judgement Day so 10 men drew lots.  10 pot shards have been found with names inscribed on them and it is thought that these were the men who killed the women, children and the other men.  One man who had drawn the fatal lot then killed the remaining 9 men before committing suicide.  In this way, only one man lost his soul.  2 women and 5 children hid in a water reservoir and were captured by the Romans and it their recorded testimony which told this tragic story.  Up until about 10 years ago, Masada was the place of national pride and all school children had to visit it by law and army conscripts were sworn in there  Ideas have changed somewhat now but it is still the most visited historical monument in the country.

Some of the birds which still live on Masada. Can't remember the name but they are only found in this area and have bright orange flashes under their wings

The remains of the ramp built from the valley floor to the Gates of Masada.  The round hump in the centre is where those who were killed were buried.

Nearby, in some caves in the rock face, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found but they are now kept in a museum in Jerusalem, so more of that later.  Also the land at the bottom of the fortress was very oddly shaped, like flat topped carved out sand dunes.  Something to do with the combination or layers of rock but they looked familiar.  They had been used in the first Star Wars film and a couple of other lesser films.

We drove on to Jerusalem and our ears popped as we climbed up above sea level again.  We stopped at a viewing area and saw the sun set over Jerusalem.  We could see the Mount of Olives, which now of course is covered with houses but also the Church of the Ascension.  We could also see the golden dome of the mosque where there have been riots recently, and the walls of the old city and our guide gave us a brief history of the Jewish Temples that have been built and destroyed on that site over the centuries.

The Mount of Olives, which is outside the old city.

And so to our very nice hotel where there is free wifi throughout. Yippee, it actually works as well.

 

The Sea of Galillee and the three churches

Day 3 

I am now running a day behind as we have struggled with the wifi provision in the hotels. The hotels were billed as 4 star and they are very nice on the whole.  Here on the Dead Sea there is definitely a shift in style. We are further south and the food is much spicier. But back to the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galillee from our hotel

The shore of the Sea of Galillee

On the coach we hear the history of the country in modern times so that we could appreciate the issues concerning Gaza, The Golan Heights and The West Bank.

We visited three churches today.  The churches are all fairly modern, built after 1900, but replace older shrines at places of Christian significance.  We visited the Church of the Beatitudes, on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee, where the Sermon on the Mount took place.  In pictures, Jesus is usually represented standing on a rock or at the top of a hill, but it is more likely that he stood at the bottom of a natural amphitheatre on the hillside which would amplify his voice.  

The Church of the Beatitudes

The Beatitudes written on windows round the dome

The landscape of the hillside

The Church of the Multiplication was at the bottom of the hill and this is where Jesus blessed the 5 loaves and 2 fishes to feed the multitude.  You can see the rock where the blessing took place and there is an ornamental pool with fish to symbolise the miracle.

The rock under the altar of the Church of Multiplication

 The last church was in the town of Capernaum, may have spelt that wrongly, where Jesus spent much of his adult life with the disciples. It is on the shores of the Sea of Galillee  .  Here Jesus healed Peter's mother in law and the centurion and called the disciples to be fishers of men.  I had thought that maybe these sites were just passed down in folklore but there is quite a lot of historical and archeological evidence. 

The Roman ruins of the town

The ruins of Peter's house below the Church of St Peter

Where Jesus called the disciples at the Sea of Galillee

But apart from all this history, today was great fun.  Believe it or not, at 8.15am we were on an old fashioned boat, sailing across the Sea of Galilee, singing the national anthem as they hoisted the Union Jack and dancing to Hava Naguila.  Later on the captain showed us how the fisherman in Biblical times cast their nets.  Sadly no fish were caught.  At lunchtime we paddled in the the sea and Lynn and I tried to get into the mood by putting on Monty Python knotted handkerchief and rolling up our trousers. 

"So I said to the fishmonger, don't give me any of those tasteless St Peter's fish I had in the restaurant last night"

Hoisting the flags to the national anthems

Saluting the flag

Hava Naguila dancing

Demonstration of Biblical fishing techniques

A long ride on to the West Bank and through a checkpoint into Jericho which is an independent Palestinian town.  Soon the Dead Sea is insight.  It is deep turquoise and more like an extremely long lake.  Actually at one point it is almost split into two across its width where the land has been exposed due to water levels dropping.  This is for two reasons, firstly natural evaporation especially because the Dead Sea is 35% salt content, and secondly because many factories extract minerals to make Dead Sea skin products.  There are of course no fish in the sea but micro organisms have been found in the water which have great healing properties for skin complaints and also asthma when inhaled.  There is a lot of health tourism now and several hotels have been built on the beachfront.  There isn't much else but the beaches are nice and there are handrails into the sea.  It is the most amazing experience.  You float really easily but it is very hard to swim as your feet float to the surface and you feel as if your face is going into the water.  Now you don't want to get the water into your eyes or mouth as it is both very painful and disgusting. You are recommended to take a bottle of water with you to wash sea water out of your eyes. There is also a sea water pool in the hotel spa which is equally painful.  

Practising flotation technique in hotel sea water pool

Lovely dinner outside under the moon and to bed.  Why are we so tired?