We started day 2 in Israel overlooking the city from the Mount of Olives. We took some great pictures and our guide explained the various areas of the city and how they developed over time. We were also clearly able to see the Kidron Valley which seperates where city was once divided between Israel and Jordan until the 1960s.
The city is one of the oldest in the world and has seen several eras predating Christianity.
From here we went down to the Garden of Gethsemane where its said Jesus prayed before he was crucified, we toured the Church and the grounds. The olive trees in the garden today are beautiful but not believed to be those that Jesus would have seen since they are only 800 years old….
From here we went down to the Garden of Gethsemane where its said Jesus prayed before he was crucified, we toured the Church and the grounds. The olive trees in the garden today are beautiful but not believed to be those that Jesus would have seen since they are only 800 years old….
Next we took the bus across into the west bank, Palestinian authority territory to Bethlehem to see the church of the nativity. At the security check point, our Israeli guide had to leave the bus and we were joined by a Palestinian. We had a quick stop at a nativity set store where we watched several of our fellow-bus mates drop over $1000 on olive wood nativity sets… this was to kill time while an Armenian Christian mass was held in the church of the nativity. We got glimpses of some beautiful graffitti and saw our first Stars & Bucks cafe! 
Once at the church we had to wait about a half an hour for the priests to finish up the mass in the grotto. By the time we got in there must have been about 2,000 people behind us waiting to get in.We made our way down the narrow stairs into the grotto and got our pictures. (see below)
On the way back to Jerusalem after lunch, we took notice of the graffiti on the security walls surrounding the west bank which were erected after the second intifada. Like our tour guide said, the issues are too complicated to do it justice; we won’t try to get into any of those facts here and instead we’ll let the graffiti speak for itself. We didn’t see or notice any graffiti on the Israeli side of the walls.
Our last stop before heading back to the ship in Haifa, was to take in more of the Old City. We walked through narrow streets and saw layers of the past unveiled by the wars between Israel and Jordan. According to our guide, the city has 38 “tel’s” meaning 38 layers of distinct architectural periods dating back thousands of years. Archeologists haven’t been able to uncover most of them, however those that have been are very well integrated into the modern construction that’s there today.
We made a visit to the church of the Holy Sepulcher and saw the slab where it's said Jesus’ body was prepared (see pic below) and the tomb where it’s believed he resurrected from. The Church itself, like the Church of the Nativity is very understated and shows signs of wear of the hundreds of years – nothing like the opulent cathedrals and basilicas found across Europe.
We were hoping to visit the Dome of the Rock (gold dome in the Old City) however we weren’t able to for security reasons. The rock is believed to be the place where Abraham was going to sacrifice his first son before being told by an angel that he didn’t have to. The rock itself is also known as the “foundation stone” and is the holiest place for Judaism and is where heaven and earth are believed to intersect. The Dome of the Rock is now a Mosque and is very well protected by security for if a fundamentalist on either side wanted to start WWIII, this would be the place to lay an attack.
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