Jerusalem

We have been home nearly a month now and I am just finding the time to post some of the photos I could not get uploaded from the ship.

We docked at the port of Ashdod in Israel and had a wonderful tour provided by Ofer from Guided Tours Israel. From the ship we traveled to Bethlehem and then to Jerusalem in a van that comfortably held the 16 of us. We encountered some closed churches in both Bethlehem and Nazareth, which we visited the next day. The city of Jerusalem was very crowded because it was a holy day for all three major religions sharing the city: Passover, Easter weekend and also for Moslems. Nevertheless, our guide managed to keep us all together and get us to all of the sites on the itinerary.

Dome of the Rock, a Moslem memorial, and the old wall of the city of Jerusalem taken from the Mount of Olives.

The Garden of Gethsemane, where the core of these olive trees are said to have existed during the time of Christ.

One of the gates into the Old City, note the vendor with bread in the right foreground. We weren't sure if we wanted to eat a loaf of bread, so we ended up paying twice as much by the time we reached the place we stopped for lunch.

We walked Via Dolorosa, the Way of Suffering, with the Stations of the Cross. We visited the first nine, but the remaining five are inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was closed because of the holy days.

Many of the first nine stations are now inside of churches. As is this one at Station II.

This bread, which we seasoned with zatar, ( spice made of dried sumac, thyme, sesame seeds and salt) given to us in a little packet of paper, was well worth the price we ended up paying. Obviously in the Arab quarter because there was no leavened bread in the Jewish quarter because it was Passover.

Also inside a church, Station III, Jesus falls.

Shopping area between Stations. It was very, very crowded, but the weather was a perfect temperature for tourists and everyone was considerate, polite and careful.

The Western Wall/ Wailing Wall where men and women pray at the Wall separately. I went with the women and Jerry went with the men and we each managed to get through the crowds up to the wall to leave messages in the cracks between the stones. The security was very tight, with everyone's belongings getting screened. It was so crowded at the wall that it was necessary to take turns. Several of us talked about having concerns about the lack of any escape route if anything bad had happened. But nothing bad did happen - it was a wonderful day.