We signed up for a city tour in Jerusalem, but we probably shouldn’t have. Large tour groups always make us feel like we’re being herded around. We must have had high expectations of the guide too. Everything he said about the city was something we had learned in Sunday school years ago. I would recommend that the best way to see Jerusalem’s old city is just to do a self-guided walking tour.
Our tour started with a trip to the Holocaust Museum. It’s tasteful (and not overly graphic). Several rooms were dedicated to the rise of Nazism. I didn’t usually think of those political movements as the beginning of the Holocaust, but now I believe they were. Also, it made me think about how dangerous it is that personal freedoms are being limited in the U.S. these days.
We got to go visit the Western Wall. It’s got separate segregated sections for males and females. I went and touched the wall and a Rabbi there gave a blessing to my family. The way he did it actually reminded me of the temple ceremony. We had really wanted to take pictures but even though the Western Wall, which is the closest wall to where the temple was, doesn’t hold the same spiritual significance for us, you could see how sacred and important it was to the other people.
Walking through Jerusalem’s old city was like riding a wave of chaos through a madhouse. We couldn’t get any peace from the crowds and noise and smells. It didn’t help that our guided tour included a stop at a tiny overpriced souvenir shop. The last part of the tour traced Christ’s last steps and ended at the Church of the Sepulcher commemorating the crucifixion. The church covering the site is enormous. I guess I expected it to be a quite place on a hill. But none of the secluded or provincial suburbs of Jerusalem have been preserved that way. Now almost everything is covered with asphalt or high gilded domes.
As soon as we tore ourselves away from the tour, Elisa and I walked a few blocks to the Garden Tomb. The Garden Tomb is held by Protestants (and Mormons) to be the likely site of the crucifixion, as opposed to the Church of the Sepulcher endorsed by Catholics. The crucifixion and the tomb are almost right next to each other at either site. It surprised me how compact everything is in Jerusalem–it didn’t take much walking to get from one New Testament site to the next. The Garden Tomb is just outside the old city walls. Since we were there on Good Friday afternoon, it coincided with the time that Christ would have been on the cross. It was such a contrast to the hustle and bustle of the old city. We spent a lot of time just relaxing and thinking about what really happened.
As it started to get dark we wandered to some gardens at the ancient site of Gethsemane. Right as we approached the doors they closed up for the day. Elisa did some sweet talking and got us inside anyway. Walking through a real olive grove was nice because Elisa has always liked olive trees. Olive trees fascinate me, not only for the spiritual reminder, but because they can grow so old. And they look really cool. 🙂 It made my day to be able to go in.
On the recommendation of a cabbie we went to a little Lebanese restaurant near the hotel. They treated us like family. We might have sampled every dish they have.