Jerusalem--the old city

I went for a quick trip to Jerusalem this week (just went for a day and a half). There was a few places I wanted to see again, and I was interested in just wandering the old city for a while.

The Damascus gate is the biggest and busiest gate of the old city. Last year there were people selling this in front, but not either day I was there. Don't know if they're cracking down, or if it was a one time thing last year.

I stayed at the Lutheran Hospice in the old city. It was a beautiful hostel, with a really big pretty garden in the back.

This was the view from the garden, overlooking the temple mount and the mount of olives in the background.

I went to the Western Wall (aka Wailing Wall) in the morning. It's interesting to see the variety of people there. You will see very orthodox Jews, tourists, non-orthodox Jews, Soldiers in uniform etc. all together. This is the wall where people come to pray for the day when their Temple will be rebuilt for the 3rd time, and to lament the loss of the previous temples. The crevices in the walls are also absolutely full of notes--it is said that a prayer left in the wall has a much better chance of being answered.

The wall has a side for males and a side for females, separated by a divider, with the side for females being much smaller. This was the men's side.

I don't know if it's just the size difference, but the women's side looked much more crowded.

I spent quite a while wandering around in the Muslim Quarter. There were streets obviously more designed for tourists, with souvenir shops and such, and shops that definitely weren't, such as the street full of butchers (that was a quick smelly walk). The colours on these narrow streets were really something to see.

Many areas in the Jewish quarter were a big contrast. Same narrow streets, but not nearly so many colours, and not nearly so many people (although it's hard to tell how crowded it actually is without the store fronts poking out into the corridors.

I also went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The last few stations of the cross are inside this church. This is one of the sites that claims to be the spot of the crucifixion.

This is a bit of an unusual view of the church. Often people go in through the door--but not me. I got lost many many times trying to get to the church from my hostel (the other day when I told Roy where I had stayed, he said "Oh, the one right by the Church of the Sepulchre", which made me laugh. Yes, it is right by the church. And yes I did spend nearly an hour getting there. And yes, I have no sense of direction (although in my defense, the old city is really confusing).

Anyways, while trying to find the church, I ran into a tour group of Japanese tourists who were walking the Via Delarosa. Not wanting to get into the church behind them, I went ahead.....and proceded to get lost again. Then I ran into this group again (who were wearing bright oarnge hats, a bad decision in my opinion, with that shade of orange being a show of support for the settlers, and for some reason I don't think these tourists were trying to make a political statement), so decided to follow them, figuring they knew where they were going.

They did know where they were going, apparently, although it wasn't where I was intending to go. That's how I got this photo of the church--I had ended up on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I think one of the monks on the roof saw me looking lost, so he took me over to a grate and showed me that if I looked through it, I was looking down on the stone of the unction. Then he told me that the entrance was back out where I came from and around the entire church....but that if I waited until the tour group was ready to go, he would let me go in through the entrance on the roof. I was very grateful, and even though the trip took a little longer than I intended, it was perhaps worth the extra time to see the church from a different angle?

The funny thing is, later in the day, I passed by it 4 times, both without trying and without intending to go there. The man who owns the shop next to it even started recognizing me "Hello Canada, back again?"