03-22-2014, 09:33 PM
For our Saturday tour of Jerusalem, I found a private guide to show us around. It seems whenever you search for guides of Jerusalem particularly walks atop the city walls, Gila Yudin’s name comes up. Originally the idea was just to get her for four hours but Cindi demanded we get her for the whole day at the cost of $350.
We met Gila in the lobby of our hotel and took a taxi to the Mount of Olives. This was a popular destination for everyone. It seemed all the tour groups currently in Jerusalem were there with us arguing about which was their favorite gospel. The biggest delay in us getting to the Jerusalem overlook were all the buses trying to pass each on other on the narrow streets.
We followed the Palm Sunday Walk down the Mount of Olives passing the Dominus Flavit Church, the Garden of Gethsamane and ending at the Church of the Agony, also known as the Church of All Nations.
At the top, we had a great view of Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock. If we wanted to, a nice man was offering camel rides complete with real Camel. I don’t know how he thought we were part of the demographic that would want to ride a camel.
Service was in session at Dominus Flavit so we did not get to go inside. Dominus Flavit was the place Jesus wept at the sight of Jerusalem and the beauty of the Second Temple. It is also where he prophesied the destruction of the temple. The church had a large glass window facing Jerusalem so parishioners could see Temple Mount during services. On the grounds of the Church were another big collection of Ossuaries. Ossuaries hold the bones of the deceased, collected after the dead bodies lie in state and the flesh rots away.
The Garden of Gethsamane holds trees that are dated from they think Jesus’s time. Olive trees don’t have rings so they can’t use those to date them so they went with Carbon Dating. The oldest tree in the small grove, which is massive, had to be fenced off to keep people from taking souvenirs from it.
The next stop was the Church of the Basilica of the Agony. It is also called the Church of All Nations because after World War I all the warring nations chipped in money to have it built.
Along the walk it was fun to her the various chattering of the pilgrims. One man was badgering his guide about what his favorite Gospel was in the Bible.
Our walk continued along the main road that runs parallel to the Eastern Wall. There was a twisted metal structure that was a memorial to Israel Soldiers who had been ambushed and killed at this point during the Six Day War. I kept trying to get nice pictures of the golden colored domes of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Mount of Olives. The clouds kept blocking the sun to keep me from my goal.
One benefit of hiring your own guide is going to places the big groups can’t get to go. As we walked up to the Lion’s Gate or St. James Gate, Gila asked us if wanted to detour through the Muslim Cemetery to see the Golden Gate. The Golden Gates are blocked up and are said to swing open when the Messiah returns. Up on the Mount of Olives, Gila told us people aren’t allowed to get close to them. But when we were on the path, she said if we were quick we could walk over to them before anybody got upset.
Now if a guide asks you if you want to go where other people don’t go, my immediate response will always be yes. Someday that might be my epitaph. I always hate writing things like that because then I think bad things will happen, that will the apocryphal quote the newspapers will use.
But we went right up to the Golden Door currently marred by painted over graffiti, good thing they used blue paint atop the yellow stone to conceal the marks to make it less obvious. It was peaceful in the Muslim Cemetery since we weren’t surrounded by a million tourists. We had great views back to the Mount of Olives and it’s hundreds of thousands of graves. Everyone wants to be close to the Temple when the Messiah comes or returns depending on which book you follow.
Back at the Lion Gate, lions not included we got a little more history. Turns out what appear to be Lions are actually Leopards. The architects building the Walls and Gates for Suleiyman found what they thought were stones of Lions and added them to gate to honor Suleiyman, who uses lions on his crest. Suleiyman had this architect put to death when he found out about the mistake along with the other architect of the wall project who failed to enclose the city of David within the walls. There are two statues of them near the Jaffa gate where you can spit on them as you exit the city.
Our first stop inside the city was St. Anne’s church which also has the Bethesda pool on the grounds. St. Anne’s is the only Crusader church left in the city that is mostly intact. Saladin turned it into a Madarassa which is why their is an arabic inscription about the main door. Currently, the French Government owns the property.
The Bethesda pool is one of the sites of Jesus’s miracle where he healed a sick man. While we walked among the ruins I got to loudly chastise a young american who jumped from a small wall rather than using some stairs six feet away and knocked loose some stones that had probably been undisturbed for fifteen hundred years. The young man hoped no one was looking and then was perplexed about why I was yelling at him. What was the big deal about knocking loos a couple of stones.
As we continued down the Via Dolorassa, we stopped at more stations of the cross. We also visited the Struthion pool under the Sisters of Zion convent. The Struthion is important because of it’s association with the Antonio fortress where Jesus was whipped.
in the floor of one of the chambers are marks made by Roman soldiers of a dice game. They also took time to carve a scorpion which was the symbol of the Roman Tenth Legion. You have to use a lot of imagination to see the feint scratches in the marble floor and see a scorpion.
Gila led us up to the top of the Austrian Hospice which had great views of Temple Mount and other sections of the arab quarter. The Austrian Hospice is next to the fourth station, where Jesus fell. Jesus falling isn’t in the bible yet there is a station for it on the Via Dolorosa.
We continued up the Via Dolorosa to the fifth station but as was a hallmark of the trip, we were not allowed in because a mass was in session. All the time we walked the road that Jesus walked, Jesus walking probably not included, we passed through one of the many Arab Souks or markets. They sell everything there. You see stalls with spices or housewares. Of course many of them sell tourist items. The proprietors screaming to come inside since looking is free.
As we finished journeying through one particularly crowded section Gila told us she only takes two kinds of tours through that stretch, one’s that are adventurous or one’s she doesn’t like. I hoped we were the former and not the latter.
We ate lunch near Muristan in the Christian quarter of the city. Muristan means hospital and was the area of the Knight’s Hospitallers quarters. Gila took us to one her local haunts because she is good friends withe the proprietor. He was the first Schwarma seller in the old city and people thought he was crazy for doing it. Now that area near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is packed with restaurants and he is a millionaire. Although he was still serving the customers and seating the hordes of tourist coming to his place.
Oddly enough, he can’t own the building for the restaurant. Most of the buildings in the Muristan are owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and they lease them out. Turns out, much like their Roman Catholic Brethren, the Greek Orthodox own a lot or property including the land upon which the Israeli Parliament sits. One of the current problems for the Israeli parliament is the lease is about to end and they need to sign a new contract for the land.
After lunch we headed to David’s Citadel for a tour of the main fort of Jerusalem near Jaffa Gate. It is called David’s Citadel despite the fact it was originally built by Herod the Great. No one wants to give Herod credit for anything.
The place was completely leveled after Saladin took the city except for three towers. As is usual for Israel when property switches hand between conquerors, they put a mosque on the site as well. The minaret still stands in the southwest corner.
We had a nice walk through the museum but most of the details are a bit fuzzy as we were entering into our sixth hour of hearing Gila talk. The stream of information becomes overwhelming. The one tidbit I do remember is the painting of Muhammed’s night ride to Jerusalem on his human faced horse, Buraq. Because you can’t show depictions of Muhammed, the face had been scratched out in the painting. There is a lot of scratching out of depictions in the Holy Land for all faiths.
Our next destination was atop the city walls where they have now made it accessible for walking. If the day had been less cloudy, the views would have been magnificent. There were still parts on the wall were the Palestinians would place their gunmen to shoot down into the Jewish controlled areas of Jerusalem leftover from 1968. We could see the Jerusalem city hall of that time which has hundreds of bullet holes in the facade. We heard the story again of the nurse who dropped her dentures into No Man’s land and needed three governments to help her retrieve them.
Gila told us when she first walked the walls, there were no railings. In some spots, the path was only two feet wide with a thirty foot drop for a mis-step. We were glad for the railings.
We descended at Damascus Gate. I made Gila wait while Cindi and I went to take pictures from the outside of the Gate. A little scary as the area was packed with Palestinians. They hold out a market outside the gate. It was probably the best place to buy men’s designer underwear in the city.
We arrived back at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre just in time to see the different denominations of priests exiting the church after their Saturday night mass. The place was packed with religious figures. Security had set up barricades to separate the tourists from the parading priests. There was plenty of pomp and circumstance. During a break in the parades, we ducked into the main Christian church in the Holy Land.
We did a quick visit inside to Cavalry where you could see the crack in the earth where Cross of Jesus was placed. It is also supposed to be the final resting place of Adam. Yes, that Adam. Which is why in many depictions of the passion of the Christ you will see a skull or head at the foot of the Cross, usually with a drop of blood on it. The meaning is to show from Original sin to expiation of all sins.
The Greek Orthodox were the last to leave since they control the majority of the Church. Seven Denominations of Christianity share the church all with differing amounts of influence. So, one niche is controlled by one sect and this main nave is controlled by another. According to the book Jerusalem: A Biography, hundreds of worshippers and priests have been killed in the Church as rival Christians battled for control of their areas.
The Greeks marched out to the tolling of the Church bells. They waited in the doorway until somebody in belfry got the message it was time to toll the bells.
Another fun fact, Christians don’t have the keys to the door of the church, two Muslim families have it. One family has the key and the other family opens the door. I tried to get a picture of the key but the family member I talked to only opens the door. This was put into effect 500 years ago when the Muslims ruled the city.
We cut short our trip to the Holy Sepulchre as it was really crowded, I needed my tripod, and Gila was about to slip into overtime.
Since it was our Honeymoon and probably could use a little romance and fewer endurance marches through the city, we went to the Arabesque Restaurant at the American Colony Hotel. When you look at the Arabesque in the guide books it has all the dollar signs next to the price indicator. But it was worth it and not near as expensive as I feared.
The American Colony Hotel was founded by an American Woman, Anna Spafford who lost four of her five daughters when her boat sank crossing the Atlantic. She cabled her husband who sold off all their assets and moved them all to the Holy Land. It has been a landmark in the city since the turn of the century.
We had the best service ever at the restaurant. And it was that really nice unobtrusive service rather than the pushy kind. I dropped a knife and it was immediately picked up and replaced before I could just wipe it on my napkin and put it back on the table. There was a constant stream of helpful people coming by the table from bus boy to Maitre’d to see if we needed anything.
Unfortunately, my steak wasn’t the greatest. Serves me right for ordering a steak when I should be having lamb in the middle east.
One of the things Gila told us was to take a peak at the Pasha’s Room if it was open. So, towards the end of dinner I asked where the Pasha’s Room was located. The waiter told me someone would come by and show us. The someone turned out to be the Maitre’d who I guess had nothing better to do like running one of the most famous restaurants in town.
He took us on a small tour of the hotel on our way up to he second floor. He almost lost his mind from unnecessary embarrassment when Cindi stepped on a metal grate and got her heel stuck, dragging the grate behind her. He was almost apoplectic trying to free the shoe, which had wedged pretty firmly in the small opening. He ran off to grab some tool. I took the shoe and freed it. Thankfully no harm cam to the shoe or we might still be on the balcony listening to apologies.
The Pasha’s Room was fine, the ceiling being the most impressive feature. But we couldn’t get a good look since it was full with people holding a private function. Once again, we were barred at the gate.
With that it was back to the YMCA to sleep.
We met Gila in the lobby of our hotel and took a taxi to the Mount of Olives. This was a popular destination for everyone. It seemed all the tour groups currently in Jerusalem were there with us arguing about which was their favorite gospel. The biggest delay in us getting to the Jerusalem overlook were all the buses trying to pass each on other on the narrow streets.
We followed the Palm Sunday Walk down the Mount of Olives passing the Dominus Flavit Church, the Garden of Gethsamane and ending at the Church of the Agony, also known as the Church of All Nations.
At the top, we had a great view of Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock. If we wanted to, a nice man was offering camel rides complete with real Camel. I don’t know how he thought we were part of the demographic that would want to ride a camel.
Service was in session at Dominus Flavit so we did not get to go inside. Dominus Flavit was the place Jesus wept at the sight of Jerusalem and the beauty of the Second Temple. It is also where he prophesied the destruction of the temple. The church had a large glass window facing Jerusalem so parishioners could see Temple Mount during services. On the grounds of the Church were another big collection of Ossuaries. Ossuaries hold the bones of the deceased, collected after the dead bodies lie in state and the flesh rots away.
The Garden of Gethsamane holds trees that are dated from they think Jesus’s time. Olive trees don’t have rings so they can’t use those to date them so they went with Carbon Dating. The oldest tree in the small grove, which is massive, had to be fenced off to keep people from taking souvenirs from it.
The next stop was the Church of the Basilica of the Agony. It is also called the Church of All Nations because after World War I all the warring nations chipped in money to have it built.
Along the walk it was fun to her the various chattering of the pilgrims. One man was badgering his guide about what his favorite Gospel was in the Bible.
Our walk continued along the main road that runs parallel to the Eastern Wall. There was a twisted metal structure that was a memorial to Israel Soldiers who had been ambushed and killed at this point during the Six Day War. I kept trying to get nice pictures of the golden colored domes of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Mount of Olives. The clouds kept blocking the sun to keep me from my goal.
One benefit of hiring your own guide is going to places the big groups can’t get to go. As we walked up to the Lion’s Gate or St. James Gate, Gila asked us if wanted to detour through the Muslim Cemetery to see the Golden Gate. The Golden Gates are blocked up and are said to swing open when the Messiah returns. Up on the Mount of Olives, Gila told us people aren’t allowed to get close to them. But when we were on the path, she said if we were quick we could walk over to them before anybody got upset.
Now if a guide asks you if you want to go where other people don’t go, my immediate response will always be yes. Someday that might be my epitaph. I always hate writing things like that because then I think bad things will happen, that will the apocryphal quote the newspapers will use.
But we went right up to the Golden Door currently marred by painted over graffiti, good thing they used blue paint atop the yellow stone to conceal the marks to make it less obvious. It was peaceful in the Muslim Cemetery since we weren’t surrounded by a million tourists. We had great views back to the Mount of Olives and it’s hundreds of thousands of graves. Everyone wants to be close to the Temple when the Messiah comes or returns depending on which book you follow.
Back at the Lion Gate, lions not included we got a little more history. Turns out what appear to be Lions are actually Leopards. The architects building the Walls and Gates for Suleiyman found what they thought were stones of Lions and added them to gate to honor Suleiyman, who uses lions on his crest. Suleiyman had this architect put to death when he found out about the mistake along with the other architect of the wall project who failed to enclose the city of David within the walls. There are two statues of them near the Jaffa gate where you can spit on them as you exit the city.
Our first stop inside the city was St. Anne’s church which also has the Bethesda pool on the grounds. St. Anne’s is the only Crusader church left in the city that is mostly intact. Saladin turned it into a Madarassa which is why their is an arabic inscription about the main door. Currently, the French Government owns the property.
The Bethesda pool is one of the sites of Jesus’s miracle where he healed a sick man. While we walked among the ruins I got to loudly chastise a young american who jumped from a small wall rather than using some stairs six feet away and knocked loose some stones that had probably been undisturbed for fifteen hundred years. The young man hoped no one was looking and then was perplexed about why I was yelling at him. What was the big deal about knocking loos a couple of stones.
As we continued down the Via Dolorassa, we stopped at more stations of the cross. We also visited the Struthion pool under the Sisters of Zion convent. The Struthion is important because of it’s association with the Antonio fortress where Jesus was whipped.
in the floor of one of the chambers are marks made by Roman soldiers of a dice game. They also took time to carve a scorpion which was the symbol of the Roman Tenth Legion. You have to use a lot of imagination to see the feint scratches in the marble floor and see a scorpion.
Gila led us up to the top of the Austrian Hospice which had great views of Temple Mount and other sections of the arab quarter. The Austrian Hospice is next to the fourth station, where Jesus fell. Jesus falling isn’t in the bible yet there is a station for it on the Via Dolorosa.
We continued up the Via Dolorosa to the fifth station but as was a hallmark of the trip, we were not allowed in because a mass was in session. All the time we walked the road that Jesus walked, Jesus walking probably not included, we passed through one of the many Arab Souks or markets. They sell everything there. You see stalls with spices or housewares. Of course many of them sell tourist items. The proprietors screaming to come inside since looking is free.
As we finished journeying through one particularly crowded section Gila told us she only takes two kinds of tours through that stretch, one’s that are adventurous or one’s she doesn’t like. I hoped we were the former and not the latter.
We ate lunch near Muristan in the Christian quarter of the city. Muristan means hospital and was the area of the Knight’s Hospitallers quarters. Gila took us to one her local haunts because she is good friends withe the proprietor. He was the first Schwarma seller in the old city and people thought he was crazy for doing it. Now that area near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is packed with restaurants and he is a millionaire. Although he was still serving the customers and seating the hordes of tourist coming to his place.
Oddly enough, he can’t own the building for the restaurant. Most of the buildings in the Muristan are owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and they lease them out. Turns out, much like their Roman Catholic Brethren, the Greek Orthodox own a lot or property including the land upon which the Israeli Parliament sits. One of the current problems for the Israeli parliament is the lease is about to end and they need to sign a new contract for the land.
After lunch we headed to David’s Citadel for a tour of the main fort of Jerusalem near Jaffa Gate. It is called David’s Citadel despite the fact it was originally built by Herod the Great. No one wants to give Herod credit for anything.
The place was completely leveled after Saladin took the city except for three towers. As is usual for Israel when property switches hand between conquerors, they put a mosque on the site as well. The minaret still stands in the southwest corner.
We had a nice walk through the museum but most of the details are a bit fuzzy as we were entering into our sixth hour of hearing Gila talk. The stream of information becomes overwhelming. The one tidbit I do remember is the painting of Muhammed’s night ride to Jerusalem on his human faced horse, Buraq. Because you can’t show depictions of Muhammed, the face had been scratched out in the painting. There is a lot of scratching out of depictions in the Holy Land for all faiths.
Our next destination was atop the city walls where they have now made it accessible for walking. If the day had been less cloudy, the views would have been magnificent. There were still parts on the wall were the Palestinians would place their gunmen to shoot down into the Jewish controlled areas of Jerusalem leftover from 1968. We could see the Jerusalem city hall of that time which has hundreds of bullet holes in the facade. We heard the story again of the nurse who dropped her dentures into No Man’s land and needed three governments to help her retrieve them.
Gila told us when she first walked the walls, there were no railings. In some spots, the path was only two feet wide with a thirty foot drop for a mis-step. We were glad for the railings.
We descended at Damascus Gate. I made Gila wait while Cindi and I went to take pictures from the outside of the Gate. A little scary as the area was packed with Palestinians. They hold out a market outside the gate. It was probably the best place to buy men’s designer underwear in the city.
We arrived back at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre just in time to see the different denominations of priests exiting the church after their Saturday night mass. The place was packed with religious figures. Security had set up barricades to separate the tourists from the parading priests. There was plenty of pomp and circumstance. During a break in the parades, we ducked into the main Christian church in the Holy Land.
We did a quick visit inside to Cavalry where you could see the crack in the earth where Cross of Jesus was placed. It is also supposed to be the final resting place of Adam. Yes, that Adam. Which is why in many depictions of the passion of the Christ you will see a skull or head at the foot of the Cross, usually with a drop of blood on it. The meaning is to show from Original sin to expiation of all sins.
The Greek Orthodox were the last to leave since they control the majority of the Church. Seven Denominations of Christianity share the church all with differing amounts of influence. So, one niche is controlled by one sect and this main nave is controlled by another. According to the book Jerusalem: A Biography, hundreds of worshippers and priests have been killed in the Church as rival Christians battled for control of their areas.
The Greeks marched out to the tolling of the Church bells. They waited in the doorway until somebody in belfry got the message it was time to toll the bells.
Another fun fact, Christians don’t have the keys to the door of the church, two Muslim families have it. One family has the key and the other family opens the door. I tried to get a picture of the key but the family member I talked to only opens the door. This was put into effect 500 years ago when the Muslims ruled the city.
We cut short our trip to the Holy Sepulchre as it was really crowded, I needed my tripod, and Gila was about to slip into overtime.
Since it was our Honeymoon and probably could use a little romance and fewer endurance marches through the city, we went to the Arabesque Restaurant at the American Colony Hotel. When you look at the Arabesque in the guide books it has all the dollar signs next to the price indicator. But it was worth it and not near as expensive as I feared.
The American Colony Hotel was founded by an American Woman, Anna Spafford who lost four of her five daughters when her boat sank crossing the Atlantic. She cabled her husband who sold off all their assets and moved them all to the Holy Land. It has been a landmark in the city since the turn of the century.
We had the best service ever at the restaurant. And it was that really nice unobtrusive service rather than the pushy kind. I dropped a knife and it was immediately picked up and replaced before I could just wipe it on my napkin and put it back on the table. There was a constant stream of helpful people coming by the table from bus boy to Maitre’d to see if we needed anything.
Unfortunately, my steak wasn’t the greatest. Serves me right for ordering a steak when I should be having lamb in the middle east.
One of the things Gila told us was to take a peak at the Pasha’s Room if it was open. So, towards the end of dinner I asked where the Pasha’s Room was located. The waiter told me someone would come by and show us. The someone turned out to be the Maitre’d who I guess had nothing better to do like running one of the most famous restaurants in town.
He took us on a small tour of the hotel on our way up to he second floor. He almost lost his mind from unnecessary embarrassment when Cindi stepped on a metal grate and got her heel stuck, dragging the grate behind her. He was almost apoplectic trying to free the shoe, which had wedged pretty firmly in the small opening. He ran off to grab some tool. I took the shoe and freed it. Thankfully no harm cam to the shoe or we might still be on the balcony listening to apologies.
The Pasha’s Room was fine, the ceiling being the most impressive feature. But we couldn’t get a good look since it was full with people holding a private function. Once again, we were barred at the gate.
With that it was back to the YMCA to sleep.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit