Jerusalem

Riviera docked in Haifa, Israel, so we had a 2 hour drive to Jerusalem but the roads were good and they were clear and we had our personal guide DROR entertaining us all the way so the time flew by. What a great time to visit this Holy city - It was the end of Ramadan so there was a great buzz about the place, everyone getting ready to party party party and barbeque barbeque barbeque....

Dror was fantastic! Ex Army tank Commander turned Tour Guide - he was great fun.

DROR ("Draw") and HUSB

First stop - Looking across to Jerusalem from The Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives has been used as a cemetery for 3,000 years and holds 150,000 graves, including the grave of Robert Maxwell, media tycoon.

  People are prepared to pay huge amounts of money to be buried here. They wanted to be buried as near to God as possible to be ready for the second coming. Basically they wanted to be first in the queue. 

But it was time to get really holy. We would soon be feeling extremely holy, you can't help it when you walk through Jerusalem. Dror drove round and parked up and we walked through the arcade towards the Old Town....

walking through the Jaffa Gate into the Old Town to visit the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

It doesn't look much from the outside does it? A couple of normal looking doors ...and... a ladder??!!

But this huge Church , which is actually several churches within a church, 

is built on what Christians call Golgotha, the place where Christ was crucified, and annointed to be buried and so contains the last 5 stations (out of 14) of the Via Dolorosa "The Way of The Cross"

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

So although it is nothing dynamic outside, inside it is magnificent! It is also quite humbling. I think even non Christians would feel a sense of  awe and importance about this place which is so steeped in history. Some visitors were moved to tears, there was crying and praying and lighting of candles, it is a powerful, emotional place.

We were lucky to visit at a  "quiet" ish time which is almost unheard of for a place such as this with tour after tour after tour visiting so we didn't have to queue for long to see the altar built above the rock where the crucifixion took place.

Above is the Crucifixion Altar, built over the rock where the cross would have stood.

We were able to kneel and touch the Rock.

I got some holiness from the Stone of The Annointing. 

There are various theories as to whether this really was the tomb of Jesus...

 

 the Roman Emperor Constantine1 discovered this tomb - his mother Helena found remains of wood and nails of the cross....

 

but  while we were there Husb had SUCH an almighty crack on the head coming out of the small, low-roofed tomb that he started to consider the meaning of such a fierce and powerful bump...

Some prefer to believe Jesus was buried here in this tomb offered to Him by Joseph of Arimathea. The fact that these tombs were found certainly proves this was an area used for burials.

Popular tradition has it that Jesus stumbled 3 times while carrying the cross to his crucifixion and His third fall is represented by the 9th station on the Via Dolorosa (there are 14 stations in all) It is actually JUST outside the Via Dolorosa and situated at the entrance to the Coptic Orthodox Church of St Anthony which forms part of the roof of the Chapel of St Helena in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Coptic Orthodox Church. Crosses reflecting crosses reflecting crosses.

This an interesting article. (READ IT HERE)   Dror told us how the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been in the same family for years. This article explains how, as a family, they keep the peace between the 5 competing Christian denominations all jealously managing their areas of the Church, I think Dror said a priest of each denomination stayed inside the Church overnight as no-one could be trusted to be left alone.

"MIKE'S CENTRE"!

Yes, we came across MIKE'S CENTRE! And then walking through a local school it was lovely to see the young boys playing football. It doesn't matter what religion, boys just love to kick a ball around.

Part of our tour included a visit to the City of David so we headed towards the Dung Gate.

This is looking back up to the Mount of Olives where we had first stopped this morning.

We exited the Old Town through the Dung Gate and prepared to walk through the tunnels of the place where it all started...The City of David

 

 

It was a walk through the 2,000 year old underground water tunnels through which the city was conquered and residents fled. We could have walked in illuminated darkness through the water of Hezekiah’s Tunnel, where water has flowed since the time of the prophets AND STILL FLOWS NOW but we opted to keep our feet dry- some people were thigh deep in in water using only torchlight to guide them, I'm afraid I felt a  bit too claustrophobic for that! It is amazing to think these tunnels were excavated by workers with none of our modern day tools and even more amazing -the digging started from the 2 ends and miraculously met in the middle!

We came out into the bright sunshine next to the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, built by Herod the Great in the first century BC. It is the most holy place in the world for Jews.

Males and females must stay separated here.The male side is far bigger that the female side. It was quite quiet here when we visited it- but later tonight it would be crazy busy with people celebrating the end of Ramadan.

Inside the male rooms to the side...

The Wailing Wall.

pomegranites

We are fit people but having done a lot of walking, loads of steps, a bit of tunnelling, and some praying we were ready for a glass of freshly squeezed pomegranite juice and a light 4pm "lunch" before heading back to the boat. What a totally brilliant day.