Jerusalem....

Well we coudn't come to Israel ad not got to Jerusalem....

So Ornit had suggested we take it easy in the morning at the beach here and then head over to Jerusalem after lunch , and the heat of the day was passing! So thats what we did.

We arrived in Jerusalem around 4pm, and the car park that Paul had painstakingly programmed into "The GPS" didn't exist so we abandoned our little budget car down a steep hill and prayed it would be there on our return. Off up the hill we headed into the old city of Jerusalem via "Dung gate", this led us immediately to the entrance to the Western "Wailing" wall.

The boys outside the The Western wall.



The men's side of the wailing wall... The ladies side was busier but also smaller!!

Sorry today we forgot the camera so picture quality is rubbish again. We didn't get the full experience but Paul and Daniel did go and rest the hands on the wall.

From there we got lost in the street market for hours, of course we bought some "stuff" and Tshirts.

Lots of the streets of the market are covered by vaulted ceilings, a real rebbit warren. I strongly recommend a street map not the Budget rental car map. After exiting at the Damascus gate, re-entering the warren, walking along Via Dolorosa, drinking a big expresso and asking at least 3 different people  we found "The Holy Sepulchre".

We found it....

It is quite amazing as a church as there are 5 different denominations represented within it!

 This is the empty tomb, we didn't queue up to go into it....



 So after a few more wrong turns we eventually made it out into the Jewish quarter for some dinner.

The old city is really diverse as all the different religions live, work and respect each other within it! How it appears to us as tourists anyway!! It is very easy to tell which quarter you are in by the cleanliness levels.

We left by the Dung gate again, and saw the end of a Jewish wedding. It is really pretty at night.

Thankfully we found our car where we had left it down the hill.... Of course navigating out of Jerusalem was a long, and winding path. We passed a police car parked at the side of the road... not sure if they were pointing a radar gun or a real gun....
Again something we saw alot of inside Jerusalem... Guns, soldiers and security!!!

Off to Jaffa today for lunch....