Day 7 - Jerusalem and Bethlehem

The beds in our hotel room were comfy and we all got a good night’s sleep. We get a free breakfast buffet with the room, so we headed to the 4th floor to check it out. Lots of delicious items: juice, eggs, hummus, baba ganoush (eggplant), sausages, fruit, pita, and a variety of sweet stuff.

[Lauren: And regular coffee! Everywhere we’ve traveled we have indulged in Arabic coffee, so this was the first time we encountered plain old Joe. The hotel called it “filler coffee,”  which evoked very American images of bulk coffee from Costco in my mind. Obviously the lesser of the two coffees.]

[Carol: I had a scarf with me that Lauren gave me, and our very nice waiter showed me how to arrange it on my head “like a Bedouin woman would wear it.” Sweet.]

Hotel breakfast buffet.

Carol's scarf turned into Bedouin headdress.

Awesome Saleem had volunteered to be our guide today, driving down from the North to meet us here this morning (usually about a 2-hour drive but traffic was really bad and he was running a little late—this coming weekend is the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, so more people than usual are on the road). Our hotel is only a short walk from the Old City of Jerusalem, so Matt Shears arranged for us to meet Saleem at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So after breakfast we gathered our “stuff” and headed to the Old City. 

[Lauren: Carol said Matt “arranged” for us to visit the church, but what she means is that he took off like a lightning bolt in that direction and Carol and I tried our best to keep up. We made the walk in record time!]

[Carol: I note in this photo that Matt is wearing one of my deceased hubby Jack's old pinstripe shirts, which I appreciate very much. Feels like Jack is accompanying us on our journey.]

Wow. We enter into the Arab Quarter of the Old City (our hotel is in the Arab part of Jerusalem) and we are immediately transmogrified back in time! Very narrow stone streets with shops on both sides, selling fruits/vegetables, mounds of spices, meat, clothing, leather goods… The many smells combine to produce an unfamiliar but not unpleasant aroma. There are very few Western tourists in this part and so we mostly saw people shopping or heading to work. Not crowded at all here. It feels almost unreal to finally be walking the ancient streets of Old Jerusalem: SO MUCH history, religion, culture, conflict, political craziness, holiness—it’s overwhelming.

Pilgrims worship at one of the Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa. This station marks the traditional spot where Jesus is said to have fallen on his way to Calvary.

As we move into the Christian quarter of the City, the crowd grows. We realize we’re on the Via Dolorosa, or Way of the Cross, and we stop at a couple of the Stations with other pilgrims to touch a spot where Jesus was when He carried His cross through the city to Golgotha. Finally we reach the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and get in the extremely long line to see the Edicule that is recognized as the Tomb where Jesus was laid after the crucifixion. It has a beautiful, ornate structure around it and many people are lined up to enter the structure; we’re told it’s about an hour to reach the entrance of the structure that houses the tomb, but it quickly becomes obvious that the line is moving VERY slowly and it will probably be much longer. People are crowding together and priests are yelling at people in line to keep moving, even pushing some people; it’s noisy, with different groups speaking different languages, and it becomes claustrophobic, so we leave the line and move around to take photos of other sites of importance in the church.

The Edicule built over the traditional site of Christ’s tomb.

People gather to ascend to the traditional site of the crucifixion.

This church was built over two sites venerated from early times, the tomb and the site of the crucifixion, so it’s a very important Christian historical and sacred place. (It’s obvious that we should have done a little more research before coming here, especially on crowd avoidance!) We move around through different chapels inside this huge church that have obvious significance, with elaborate carvings and paintings. In one chapel area we find a stone preserved with two holes in it, adjacent to a painting of Jesus sitting with His hands tied and his feet in the stone holes: this is where he was said to be held before being crucified. 

We have read enough to know that there are multiple sites claiming to be the authentic ones, with each having its own evidence to back it up. The sites venerated in this grand church were those found by the Christian Roman Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena, when she was sent by her son to find the True Cross, the Tomb, Golgotha, and the manger site, about 300 years after Jesus' crucifixion, and the original church here was built over the sites that she found to be the most authentic ones, which the Christians who lived here at the time told her were the correct places and which they had been venerating for many years.

Kneeling at the Stone of Unction, where Christ’s body is said to have been laid  while being dressed for burial.

Carol spotted a coin shop and wanted to buy some souvenirs. (Saleem had some connection with the shop owner. He has been a minister here for a long time - his father was a minister too - and he knows a LOT of people—he’s a wonderful man.) Carol bought some old coins—several “widow’s mites” mentioned by Jesus in the Gospels. [Lauren: The  shopkeeper at the antiquities store admired the Tiberius denarius that Carol wears around her neck. He said it was a great coin featuring Tiberius’s nickname, probably worth $1500 now. Much more than the $300 she bought it for in the mid-80s!]

We then walked to the site of the Garden Tomb, close by. It’s a much more peaceful setting in an actual garden with ruins of a very old tomb that closely match the Bible’s description of the tomb site. It was discovered and excavated in the 1800s by Protestants. Nearby is a domed rocky hill that is thought to be the crucifixion site; part of the hill resembles a skull and Golgotha is referred to in the Bible as “place of the skull.” The crowd here was much smaller and it was peaceful, so we liked it better. So who knows? What we came away with is that it doesn’t really matter which site is the “real” one. We are here to see and experience the places where Jesus taught, healed, and had his ministry, and was cruelly executed, to hopefully draw closer to Him. Something significant certainly happened in this place to transform his band of followers from a sorrowful, discouraged, scared, ragtag, scattered group to a large family of believers, full of strong faith in Him, to the point that they were ready to lay down their lives for their belief in Jesus as the Christ, to spread His gospel of love to the rest of the world. 

Observing a cliff side representative of Golgotha.

The Garden Tomb entrance.

The empty tomb. The cross was painted in the 5th century AD,
 restored by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

An ancient wine press in the gardens.

[Lauren: I think the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is probably the more accurate site for Jesus’s death and burial, but the Garden Tomb was much more spiritually impactful. I highly recommend visiting both.]

Saleem asked if we would like to visit Bethlehem next. We were surprised, because we didn’t think we’d have time to see Bethlehem, since you have to drive into the West Bank, but Saleem said it was doable so we were thrilled at the opportunity. Plus Lauren and Carol wanted to buy some carved olive wood nativity scenes for gifts, and coming from Bethlehem they would be extra special. We were getting hungry so Saleem picked a spot where he’d eaten before. It was different freshly grilled meats with the usual grand assortment of hummus, yogurt, greens, veggies, pickles, and pita bread—delicious!! [Lauren: To my great surprise, my favorite meat of all was kidney! Good thing I didn’t know that before I tried it.]

So we drove through the checkpoint into the West Bank, Area A, which is exclusively Palestinian, and into the city of Bethlehem. Manger Square was impressive—the large open area that you often see on the news at Christmas filled with pilgrims celebrating the birth of Jesus. Again, a Basilica (Church of the Nativity) was built over the site that Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, found, which was presumed to be where Jesus was born. The door into the church was very low—you have to stoop to go in (apparently made that way to keep the Ottomans from riding their horses into the church, but now called the Door of Humility, as you bow before the Christ to enter the birthplace). There was another long line to view the shrine that commemorates the birth site. Since our time here was limited, we opted not to wait in the line. 

Outside the Church of the Nativity

Carol & Lauren enter through the Door of Humility.

Inside the Church of the Nativity.

Old Bethlehem was similar to Old Jerusalem: narrow cobbled streets with many shops lining each side. We looked through several shops for souvenirs. Saleem took us to a woodcarving shop where he had “connections” and we ended up getting a private tour of a carving factory. Lauren and Carol both got fabulous deals on carvings for souvenirs, made by hand in Bethlehem from olive wood.

The Bethlehem Peace Center, a cultural center providing many services to the area,
is located in Manger Square of old Bethlehem.

A woodworker demonstrates his equipment.

Touring the olive wood-carving shop.

It was getting late by this time, and we were still hoping to see Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives, so we headed back to Jerusalem. Saleem’s brother-in-law works in an office on the way, and they hadn’t seen each other in a while, so we stopped briefly to say hi to him, then headed to Gethsemane. We got at least a peek at the olive trees and gate there—it was closing time, unfortunately, so we headed to the Mount of Olives, for a FABULOUS view of Jerusalem spread out below. (The smog was still heavy, but the sun was setting over the city and if it had been clear, it would have been in our eyes and we couldn’t have seen or photographed very well, so it was actually an advantage.) Saleem pointed out Jesus’ route, from Gethsemane, to Caiaphas the high priest’s house, to the judging by Pilate, and then carrying the cross through the City on the Via Dolorosa to the crucifixion location. We contemplated this view and photographed it for some time. A magnificent view, with the sun setting behind the walls of the Old City, and lights gradually coming on. Amazing.

[Lauren: Ending our trip with a bird’s eye view of Jesus’ journey through Jerusalem was stunning. When we visited specific holy sites, it was easy to get in the weeds about whether or not this is the exact spot where a biblical event happened. Looking at the city from above though, one thing is for sure: Jesus was here. He walked up these mountains and through these streets. He died here, and then he rose again.]

Matt, a cat fan (as are we all), did various pictorial studies of the Cats of the Holy Land.

This is the Mount of Olives kitty.

It was time for Saleem to head back to Nazareth. He dropped us at our hotel and we thanked him and said a fond farewell, promising to visit again. All three of us were pretty much exhausted by this time, so we retired for a nap before deciding what to do for supper. (We weren’t too hungry after our massive lunch!) We had a rest and started packing, since our taxi to the Tel Aviv airport was coming at 7:30 am the next morning. Carol opened a box of dates she had bought earlier, and Lauren went down to the lobby to do some work on her computer and she brought up a sandwich. Just a snacking supper on this our last night in Israel. Matt wasn’t feeling great—probably effects of dehydration, since he hadn’t been drinking as much as Lauren and Carol—so we all drank water and went to bed.

We made it to our flight home the next morning, looking surprisingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Maybe we'll add an Epilogue to this blog to describe our adventures and thoughts after getting back to North Carolina.