Jerusalem-The Old City

We arrived in Jerusalem after dark on Nov. 6.  We were having difficulty with our GPS program.  It seemed to take us all over the place and we couldn't see well in the dark.  It was trying to take us into a medical complex with a hospital.  We were finally able to call the hotel and get some directions.  It turned out that the hotel was part of a small mall that was connected to the hospital in the complex.  In the end it was okay because we were able to get some food without going out to look for it.  The above photo was taken from our hotel room the next morning and shows the old city of Jerusalem across the valley.  We were able to leave our car at the hotel for the day and take a taxi to the old section of the city.  We arrived before most shops and things were open so we found our way around to the wailing wall without a lot of congestion.

The Temple Mount section of the Old City is in the Muslim Quarter and is an accessible to the public.   I believe that we took this picture of their famous golden Al-Aqsa Mosque from  higher viewpoint in the Jewish quarter.  This mosque is commonly known as the Dome of the Rock.

Here is a view of the Mount of Olives from the Old City Jewish Qtr.

Here is our friend Shawn at the wailing wall.  The men and women are separated and each has to go to their own specific side.  As women, we were not required to cover our heads.

Larry made new friends at the Wailing Wall.  Larry is very friendly.

These two photos were taken outside of the walled Old City in the regular part of Jerusalem.

When we entered the city at the Jaffa Gate so the next few photos were as we entered the Old City.

The Jewish Qtr of the Old City has many Yeshivat which are Jewish educational institutions.  This is one of the signs on the walls.  Walking through the Old City is like walking through a maze-exciting and very confusing. About 2000 people live in the Jewish Qtr while 22,000 people live in the Muslim Qtr, including 60 Jewish families.

We purposely took a lot of photos of the streets early before the crowds arrived.  It becomes quite crowded during the day after the shops open.

There were frequently armed guards in a foursome.  They don't allow picture taking.  Whoops.

Here you can see the walls that surround the Old City.

Several blocks outside of the Old City is a place called the Garden Tomb.  Our friend, Shaun, had this on the top of her list and it quickly jumped to ours too.

Below is a picture of the hill anciently called Golgatha where some scholars feel that Christ was crucified.  The picture was taken from inside the eastern area of the Garden Tomb which was closest to the Old City.

This old photo was posted on one of the walls in the garden.  It is a photo of Golgatha taken some time after the Jewish people had won the war to create the State of Israel.

Here are people in the garden lined up to look into the tomb.  The garden was very beautiful and peaceful.

Here Steve and I are standing in front of the small entrance to the tomb prior to going inside.  It was a small entrance and only a few people could be inside at a time.  Of all the places we went on our trip, this was the only place where we strongly felt an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  This brought tears to our eyes.  Shaun said that President Kimball had stated this was the place where Christ was buried.  I believe him.

Here is the inside of the Garden Tomb.  There is a small area behind the railing where people could stand an observe.  It was maybe 6-8 feet square.

After we left the Garden Tomb, we walked around the outside of the Old City wall until we came to the eastern side.  We were able to climb a lot of stairs on the outside of the wall to get a vantage point where we could see the BYU Jerusalem Center,  the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden and the Mount of Olives.

The green area below is the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden.

Here I am standing in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This was an important location for me to see.  There was a long line to get into a church behind these old olive trees.  We didn't wait in the line or see the church.  Those large trunked trees are thousands of years old.

Below is a portion of the burial grounds on the Mount of Olives.  Both the Christians and the Jews have burial grounds there.  There are many more Jewish people buried there.  They believe that people buried on the Mount of Olives will be those who get to rise in the first resurrection.  The Jewish burial plots cost $175,000 US each.

This is a picture of the Old City from the top of the Mount of Olives.  You can see burial grounds on each side of the street that divides the Mount from the Old City.

This is the East Gate of the Old City which has been bricked up by the Muslims so that Christ won't be able to enter the gate after his resurrection.  Some of these religious traditions seem ludicrous to me.  I think if Christ wants to enter through this gate, he will be able to do it.

This is a picture across the valley from the Mount of Olives into the Muslim section.  We avoided anything in that direction.

This view from the Mount faces south which is towards Bethlehem.  It is now a suburb of Jerusalem. We didn't have time to go there.  Our friends' daughter said it was a big disappointment--just another church.

In this photo below of the city wall you can see a section where the wall jogs on the right.  That area in front of the wall that would square up was where Solomon's Temple used to be.  You can see some lower foundational ruins there.

Here is an olive tree that is probably 2,000+ years old in the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden.

A driver hustled us to take us up to the top of the Mount of Olives.  Our feet were tired so we took the bait.  He was quite informative, however, and scared us half to death driving fast down the mount on a narrow road with only room for one car.  Occasionally, he would honk his horn which gave me some relief.  Anyway, he also took us to the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden and the Mount Scopus Forest lookout.  From this point we could see across the valley to the Dead Sea.  If we turned around, we could see the Dome of the Rock.  The area between the Mount Scopus and the Dead Sea is controlled by the Palestinians so that was a "no go" for us.  Mount Scopus hosts the first Hebrew University in modern Israel and a large medical center.  Since the road to them was often controlled by the Arabs, it has a very interesting history.

Here we are with our friends, the Hogge's, at the BYU-Jerusalem Center.  It was closed that day.

Our driver also took us to a luxury hotel where many dignitaries stay.  His cousin owns a gift shop there, where we got a great "deal" on an olive wood nativity.  We only bought Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus as these beautiful carved olive wood pieces were very expensive.  Larry and Shaun bought several items, so it was worth the hustle for the driver.

The driver had another "cousin" who gave us a free loaf of bread to sample.  It was very tasty.

Another photo of the Dead Sea from the Scopus Forest viewpoint.

I believe the burial plots in this photo are Christian as they were quite different from the others.

Here is the nice driver who showed us several sites and took us to his cousin's gift shop.  He was a real talker.  We tried to negotiate a price before we got in his car, but he said we could pay him whatever we felt it was worth or if we paid nothing, he would forgive us.  When he dropped us off at the Lions' Gate an hour or so later, he didn't seemed too thrilled with the $40 we paid him.  We felt that was a fair price.  Everyone was his cousin.

More tomb stones on the Mount of Olives.

The fancy hotel with the Olive Wood gift shop.

More photos of the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher inside the Old City of Jerusalem is probably the most often visited site in the Christian Qtr of the Old City.  Many claim that Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected on this site.  Many Christian churches wrangle for control of the site so it has been surrounded by much contention.  It was very large and very crowded.  Below are several photos.

We were not inspired by our visit to this famous church but it was interesting to see.  

As we left the Old City in the early afternoon, we tried negotiating with several taxi drivers for the fare we had paid that morning.  Everyone was about twice as much.  We knew we were being ripped off, but we finally hopped in one who agreed to use a meter.  Big mistake.  The metered price was MORE than twice as much as we had paid that morning.
We grabbed a salad and headed for Jerusalem.  It was supposed to be about 1 1/2 drive to turn in our rental car.  The ship wasn't leaving until 9 p.m. but we had to turn the car in before 6 p.m.  Traffic was extremely congested at times and it was difficult to tell how far we still had to go.  We finally got to an area where we thought we could use our phones so we started calling the rental office.  Neither Steve's phone or mine would work, but we got through with Shaun's service.  They said that we weren't too far away and they would wait for us and call us a taxi to take us to the ship.   We were very relieved as it would have been difficult to get a taxi in that area.  We ended up being only 10 minutes late.  It was kind of them to wait for us, and we truly appreciated the taxi driver that was waiting for us.  The taxi issues in Israel tainted our experience a bit, but we were grateful for all that we were able to see and grateful to be safely back on board the ship for a nice dinner.  Later I realized  that I had left my prescription sunglasses on the floor of the car.  Darn!