The Mount of Olives, The Garden Tomb and the Via Dolorosa

Friday. Again, we got up early, because we had a lot to do today - before the Sabbath hit. From about 2pm on Friday, Jewish businesses wrap it up for the Sabbath - and boy, everything shuts down. No minibuses, no regular buses, no museums, no shops (least not Jewish ones - the Arab stuff is still open) - nothing. It's all closed. And it stays like that til much the same sort of time on Saturday.

So we headed out to the Mount of Olives first of all. The plan was to get as much stuff done in the morning as possible, then get back to the Via Dolorosa to join the Franciscan monk's procession at 3.00pm. So we got the local minibus out to east Jerusalem, to the Mount of Olives, which is named after the olive trees that used to cover its slopes. There's still a lot of olive groves on the hill now. We got off the bus where the locals told us to - at the Chapel of the Ascension - the site where Jesus ascended into Heaven. Inside there is a stone which they reckon has the imprint of the footprints of Jesus. Is it wrong for me to be so skeptical about it? I couldn't really make out any footprints on the stone... and they reckon that's the VERY SPOT where Jesus ascended - maybe it was, maybe the disciples marked it in some way and then the early Christians built a church there, I don't know. I just find it a little hard to believe that 2000 years later, they know the EXACT SPOT where it happened, and they have a footprint there too. But again, for me, it's not important exactly where it happened, but that it happened. The funny thing about this Chapel now though, is its a MOSQUE!

Anyway, after we went to the Chapel of the Ascension, we moseyed along down the road and followed a couple of tour buses because we figured, as we didn't have a very useful map (again, thanks, Lonely Planet!), they would probably be heading for all the sights, so we should manage to see what we needed to.

Of course there is another bonus to tagging along with a tour group. I know, you're thinking, you get to hear the explanations of the places. Bap-boing! You're wrong... well, no, in part you're right, but the thing is, all the tour groups we've seen here in Jerusalem have been Spanish or Italian... I don't speak any of those languages, alas, and neither does Agnieszka, so that rules that one out. No, the other advantage to tagging along with a tour group, I am ashamed as a good Christian woman (well trying to be) to say, is that you get counted as a part of their group and therefore get in for free...

Anyway, the next place we ended up was the place where Jesus taught His disciples to pray the Lord's Prayer. This place was cool because they had the Lord's prayer displayed on the walls in some 44 different languages. The only problem was, could I find English? No, I had to go ask in the shop and eventually found it tucked away in some obscure little corner.

After this we followed another tour group and ended up at Dominus Flexit. This is a church at the site where Jesus looked over Jerusalem, prayed for the city and wept. There's a great view from there of the Garden of Gethsemane, so we headed off with the next tour group in that direction.

I have to say I really found the Garden of Gethsemane to be very moving. First of all the trees there are so thick trunked, you have no problem believing they could be the original trees from Jesus' time.There's another big church there, but this one was actually not too bad in terms of decoration (i.e. it wasn't as OTT as others that I've seen on this trip), so it was actually quite nice. There was a bit of a communion service going on when we visited, so Agnieszka gate crashed and took communion! Then I tried to go up and the dude closed the gate, so I couldn't!

After this we went across the road to another Church, this one now being apparently the Church where the virgin Mary died. Well, not died, as the Catholics think God beamed her up, like Scotty. There is a bit of controversy about this though, as there is a place near Ephesus in Turkey where she apparently died. Anyway, we met a Franciscan monk there who told us all about how Mary was whisked up into Heaven, and seriously, at one point I just couldn't help myself and let out a bit of a laugh. Had to quickly cover it up as a cough though because the dude looked at me somewhat sternly. Come on, though, it was the first I'd ever heard of Mary being beamed up. And also, I didn't really believe much of what he said, as he couldn't give us directions to Gordon's Calvary - in fact the place he told us was Gordon's Calvary was actually Gethsemane.

Anyway, after the 'Mary Was Beamed Up Here' Church, we headed down off the Mount of Olives, crossed the road near the city walls and made our way to the City of David, near the valley of Kidron. This was pretty impressive and we spent some time wandering about. My favourite was Hezekiah's tunnel, which is 533m long, pitch black, between ankle and mid calf depth of very cold water (the whole time) and takes some 45 minutes to walk. Oh and for much of the journey you are doubled over as its quite a low ceiling. This tunnel opens out on the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus healed a man who had been blind from birth. Of course, though, when we went in the tunnel we didn't have proper water shoes like everyone else, so my sandshoes were absolutely soaked.

At this stage though in the day, time was fast getting away from us, and the one thing I really wanted to do (I mean, I can take or leave all this Mary and David stuff) was walk the Via Dolorosa with the Franciscan Monks at 3pm. Alas, this was not to be, for we arrived at the start point a little after 3, not knowing that actually the procession now takes place at 4pm (I had an older Lonely Planet, which is why we thought it was 3pm), so we thought we'd missed it and ended up tagging along with a bunch of Spaniards doing their own thing. I was a bit disappointed to find that the various stations of the cross were again a whole heap of Catholic churches, but anyway, as we started to do the walk I really began to feel a sense of sombreness and communion. We did all the stations (except the first 2, which were closed) and it was wierd, at each station the priest dude would read a few things, then they'd sing a hymn in Spanish, and off we'd go. I was a bit upset though that at one point, one of the women spotted us (I mean seriously, its a free world, plus the Via Dolorosa takes in a public road, so hey, we're entitled to be there too, right?) and she starts getting shirty that we're doing the walk with them, but once we got to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the last few stations are, we left them and did our own thing.

The walk was really emotional, and I'm pleased I did it, although the next day when we went to the Garden Tomb I have to question whether this 'Via Dolorosa' really is the real one. After our Via Dolorosa walk we went down and checked out the Jewish quarter - although we really shouldn't have bothered, as everything was closed by now for the Sabbath. So, we went to the Wailing Wall to see what it was like with all the Jews there, and boy, was it packed. It was really interesting, the men were doing the head butting thing, whereas the women were singing actually quite joyful, lively songs (although in true Hebrew fashion, the music was in a minor key).

Saturday. We got up early and went to the city walls for 9am, where you can do a walk on the walls - one of the few things you can do on the Sabbath in Jerusalem. This was quite interesting although it was a bit disconcerting that at certain parts of the walk you could see Israeli snipers on duty, monitoring the situation in the souks.

After our walk we wandered back towards the souks enroute to Gordon's Calvary, but on the way we came across one of the stations of the cross at Ecce Homo, which we hadn't had the chance to see yesterday. We went in and met this bloke who wanted to show us around. He showed us some real interesting things too, like the old Solomon's Temple, which is under the ground - but alas this guy was a real tool and a bit of a lech. He would position you to see something and at the same time, brush his hand on your bottom - we told him where to go. Alas, we would run into him later in the day at the Church of the Dormition.

After Ecce Homo, we finally made it to the Garden Tomb at Gordon's Calvary. I have to say that I found this place to be a much more meaningful, spiritual experience for me. First of all, the hillside is outside of the city walls (unlike the Sepulchre church) and actually does look like a skull (as Golgotha means 'place of the skull'). Second, there's a tomb there that really looks like what you would imagine Joseph of Aramathea's tomb to look like. Finally, its not overloaded with smells and bells, so you can really just sit down, in the quiet and cool of the garden, and pray or reflect. And the tour guides actually talk not about whether or not this is the true place where Jesus was crucified (which was a quarry that is now a bus station), but they remind you that it's important that it happened. Much more my kind of thing, to be honest.

Golgotha

Joseph of Arimathea's Tomb

We went from Gordon's Calvary to the other end of the Old City, to the Zion Gate. Outside the Zion Gate is the Church of the Dormition, another Mary thing, plus the room of the Last Supper. Incidentally, I didn't know that the Holy Spirit came to the disciples at the same place until we'd got back to England, but anyway, I can say I've been there and it was an interesting place.

After this we made our way to the Jewish cemetery on the hunt for Oskar Schindler's grave, but by this point, it was later in the day and it was closed. So we headed back to the Old City, and surprise, surprise, ended up again at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Agnieszka had more things to bless).

We had had several very full on days in Jerusalem, a place I really loved, and now it was time to return to the hostel and start to think about moving on...