Day 2

Oh my! Did we sleep good! The dinner last night was amazing!

Well day 2 started at the Mt of Olives. There is where I caught Inger picking put our burial plots in this ancient cemetery. The Mt of Olives is mostly a cemetary and sits less than a mile across the valley from the temple. The ancient temple is now occupied by the Golden Dome of the Rock.

The Golden Dome sits atop where the temple was (Solomon's and later Herod's). We were told that this was supposed to be where Abraham offered up Isaac years earlier.

Just to the left of the Gold Dome are 2 grey domes where Jesus supposedly was hung on a stake. That's rt, "Golgotha." About a half a mile to the left is a steeple and another grey dome. That is where Mt Zion is.

The Garden of Gethsemene is today a very, very small garden next to this cemetery.

The Garden looking from the temple. The cemetary is on the right-middle of the picture.

From here we entered the city through the Joppa gate. Inside, the walled city is divided into 4 qtrs, The Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian. The Joppa gate led us through the Muslim Qtr.

Typical streets were narrow and bustling. Expected to see Aladdin flying through on his carpet. Did at least his monkey, Abu! Tons of activity. But we found a side street with no activity so that you could see how they looked.



We wound through the city until we got to the place Jesus was supposed to have walked, carrying his torture stake. Of course when the city was destroyed in 70 CE all the roads were destroyed too so there is really no know of telling exactly where events took place.


One of the places along this "trail" was the Golgotha church (the one with the double grey dome you saw earlier). Eight different religions lay claim to it and each have their rituals to draw in crowds in this place built above where Jesus supposedly died. Constantly bickering with each other.

Inside (yes, we went inside), there were beautiful mosaics made up of tiny tiles no bigger than a quarter of an inch.

Devout followers would travel through the church much like they would through an amusement park to the different stops to kiss or kneel before a spot on the floor that something special had happened.

Many waited in line to be able to kneel before this monument built on the stone that Jesus stake was put up on. Inside another church.

Then we were off to Bethlehem. Our Jewish guide had to get off the bus because Bethlehem is now under Palestine control. Wondered when I saw this sign if I would have to leave too. Hehe!

Once inside we ate lunch and saw typical fields like the one Boaz could have had. Moab was not all that far away. Just a distant hill within sight. In fact what we noticed most, was that everything was close by. Much of what we read in the bible happened within close proximity to other events. The Jerusalem area is very quaint.

And how could we talk about the bible without our coffee.

Just past the "Stars and Bucks" was this Kingdom Hall on the 3rd floor.

No JW signs allowed but our new Palestinian guide said he had been there twice.
Heading back out of Palestine we had to be checked at the Jerusalem border. Check this out! Yeahhhh!!!

Don't let her good looks fool ya. She meant business. I almost made a wise crack but thought better. Palestinians, now controlling Bethlehem, could not enter into Jerusalem where we were staying. But we could and there is Inger again in front of the Jerusalem wall.

Back at out hotel where took a nap before dinner. Gotta go now cause they set our wake-up call for 5:15. Tomorrow we go to the Dome of the Rock, The City of David, The Jewish Qtr, The Western Wall, and the spring of Gihon that separated Gideon's men. Whew! See ya then.