A Tour of Jerusalem

Ok, we are getting behind here! This is Sunday in Jerusalem...

Through Nate's family friends we were able to connect with a recommended guide in Jerusalem on Sunday. We meet Krina outside the Jaffa gate at 10am. She had sent us a picture so we knew who to look for. We had an action packed 4 hour hustle through Jerusalem ahead of us! We started at the Temple Mount, the raised platform built by King Herod in the first century BC to create a huge plaza for his palace and the Jewish Temple. Nothing remains of his complex except this platform. The famous Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, is one of the great retaining walls for the platform.

It turns out, King Herod was pretty much a building genius. (See Nate's post on Caesarea.) To make this platform, he built a bunch of arches, then filled up the space under them with all sorts of old Jerusalem junk he found laying around. Then he built the stone walls all around and voila! Impressive platform.

There are several ways up to the Temple Mount, but only one for non-Muslims with metal detectors and security checking every bag. On the way up, you have a nice view over the Wailing Wall.

Anyway, these days the platform is home to two major Muslim sites - the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque. You can't go inside either of them unless you are Muslim, but you can walk around the platform which is huge. The Dome of the Rock is the gold-domed building you may have seen in pictures of Jerusalem. Except for the dome, the entire outside is covered in tile mosaic work. The building is a shrine to, what else, a rock said to have the footprint of Mohammed on it. Mohammed had a vision that he ascended to heaven from "al-aqsa" which translates as "the farthest place". In reality, Mohommed was never in Jerusalem and the Mosque called "al-Aqsa" came way later as well.

Up on the Temple Mount, as we walked around, there were several groups of kids out playing soccer. (Well, I should say groups of boys - not kids.) The ball bounced our way once and Nate trapped it very cleanly and passed it back to many oohs and ahhs. (As in, "ooohh, the American has soccer skills!")

From there, we left through one of the other exits (I guess anyone can go out, only Muslims can come in) and started along the Via Dolorosa - literally the "Way of Suffering" - otherwise known as the Stations of the Cross. Some of the stations are chapels along the road, others are just simple markers with a roman numeral on the side of the wall. There were lots of groups, some even carrying a cross with them, making their way along the Via Dolorosa, singing and praying together. We weaved in and out of the groups, being a small group of three, trying to imagine what it might have been like in Jesus' time. In our time, it was really really hot.

The last five Stations are within the craziest conglomeration of architecture I have ever seen, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It is believed that the grounds enclosed by the church contain the place where Jesus was crucified, buried and then rose from the dead. It all started when St. Helena, the mother of Roman Emperor Constantine (who is the one who converted to and made Christianity the official religion of Rome), traveled to the Holy Land. She asked around about where the important events of Jesus' life had occurred and built the first church around 326AD. After that, the Crusaders added on in the 12th century and pretty much everyone that could added on or renovated up until the mid-1850s. I really can't even begin to describe the results. It's both fascinating and disorientating, the spaces overlapping each other side to side and up and down (sometimes down as much as three levels!), so that from one space you might be looking down and across two others that don't seem to relate. To make it even more crazy, the church is co-owned by three Christian denominations: Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian and their styles are infused into the spaces they've claimed as their own making an already confusing building lack any unifying style. Don't get me wrong - it's one of the most fascinating spaces I've ever been in. But, perhaps I am analyzing too much the architecture of a place that is really all about faith!

Krina took us through the major spaces of the Church and explained their significance. At first, I was feeling not in the right mind set. The place was mobbed and loud, with people waiting in long lines to get to some of the areas. Camera flashes were going off left and right as tour groups whizzed through. It didn't feel like a holy place. I kept trying to focus and block out the crowds, but being a Lauring with minor ADD that was, of course, impossible. It was frustrating for awhile. In the end though, I decided that the magic of the place wasn't its serenity but its ability to draw people from all over the world, from so many different Christian denominations and from so many walks of life and to bring out such enthusiasm and devotion in these people. It was an awe-inspiring, if not rowdy, display of faith.

We left the church and headed for our last stop, the Western Wall. As I said before, the wall is a retaining wall for the Temple Mount. The Jewish people considers it their most holy place because it is the only remnant left of their great Temple. We went through security again and into the large plaza in front of the wall. The wall itself is divided into an area for men and an area for women. Naturally, the men's area is 3 times the size of the women's but we won't go there. Men needed yarmulkes (spelling?) or other head coverings to approach the wall - spares were provided for visitors - and women needed shoulders and knees covered and heads covered if you are married. As you probably know, the tradition is to write a prayer on a little slip of paper and slide it in between the stones. (Although, this may be a tourist tradition and not a Jewish one.) In any event, Krina talked to us about the wall a little. We learned that though they have to clean out the little slips of paper a few times a year, they aren't thrown away since they have God's name on them. Instead they bag them up and bury them in a Jewish cemetery. Krina left us here after a great morning and Nate and I split up to approach the wall.

By this point, it was the middle of the sweltering hot afternoon and we were ready for a snack and a break. We walked through the Jewish Quarter and found a falafel place (over-priced compared to our favorite guy by the Damascus gate) and sat for a bit. We decided to head towards a place called the Garden Tomb which is on the walk from our hotel to the Old City. The place is an alternate location that some suggest may be the burial place of Christ. But, it's closed on Sundays! (Two strikes on visiting that place now - yesterday we tried during the middle of the day, but they are closed 12-2.) We'll try again tomorrow.

It was about 4:30pm so headed back to the hotel to chill a little. Back out again in time to walk back towards the Old City for mass at the Notre Dame Center (thanks for another tip, Nick!) in English! What a neat place - it looks like a castle from the outside and is a Roman Catholic center for pilgrims, including guest rooms. It was booked or we would have stayed there for its great location right outside one of the gates into the Old City. We were a bit surprised when for the Eucharistic Prayer and the Lord's Prayer the priest switched to Latin. I was a little annoyed and then I felt like my dad, who hates when we sing even the little bit of Latin at mass and I chuckled a little to myself.

Finally, we headed to a new pedestrian shopping/eating area just outside the walls for dinner. We sat in comfy cushy chairs outside with a view of the walls all lit up. Lovely end to a lovely day.