Heyyyy!
I apologize for the inactivity caused by studying, Now, I have finally time to write down the other parts of our adventure. And there is still a lot to show!:)
We arrived in Jerusalem in the evening and planned about a twenty-kilometer sightseeing tour for the next day. We had only one day in Jerusalem, so were walking super-quickly and spent just a short time at every sight. But we saw it almost all! We started at Western Wall, continued to the city of David, then the Jewish city, didn’t miss the calvary, and finished it all the way up at the Olive mountain, from where we saw tons of fires, and also the whole city. Typical capricorn syndrome, as I call it :))))
I won’t describe all the places, but if you have any questions about Jerusalem, feel free & let me know in the comments!:)
There is a lot to see in Jerusalem. If you are not a strong believer, and the sights are just “sights” and nothing more, then one day is good 🙂 If you wanna visit all the synagogues, temples, churches and mosques, it’s better to stay 2 days because you have to count with a lot of waiting. For example, we waited about an hour just to see Golgotha in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jesus was supposed to be crucified here). After this experience, we gave it and admired the buildings rather from the outside.
The Western Wall is definitely worth seeing. Not for the wall itself, but for the people. It’s an incredible experience. And don’t forget to slip your wish into one of the loose rocks!
Another highlight was the Jewish quarter, which I loved a lot. The architecture is flawless.
On the contrary, I wasn’t completely thrilled about the city of David, the Old Town market, or the Getseman Gardens, but maybe it’s just my feeling because we didn’t explore them enough.
Well, and since we were done exploring Jerusalem in the late afternoon, we still had some time till the evening. The first option was to visit Bethlehem in Palestine, where Jesus was supposedly born (since we saw where he died, we had to see where he was born as well, right?!).
Because of the current situation in Palestine, we were not sure whether to go or not, but in the end we decided to risk it. We found a taxi driver who would get us there. It’s about half an hour/30 km away from Jerusalem. Even though we had our rental car, but we thought it would be safer with a guy. And here come my bargaining skills. The driver’s price was 400 ILS and I told him that it’s way too much and we would give him not more than 100 ILS. Then he said 300 ILS. Then I said that 150 is everything I have. He finally agreed, so we beat the price from 400 to 150 ILS and felt much safer with him than traveling alone.
But I have to say that Bethlehem didn’t get my admiration at all. The Temple of the Nativity lies on a dirty square, and the whole Palestinian way of living doesn’t really suit me, so if you don’t necessarily need to see this place, it’s not worth the stress, the constant shouting & whistling of guys, money and time :))
So, that’s about it from Jerusalem and next time I’m gonna take to you the Dead Sea, so stay tuned!
E.
