Day trip to Jerusalem

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The best part of my job while working on a cruise ship is, that once in a while I get to escort guest tours. Since I started cruising again last December I have been able to add a few new countries to my travel list. Yesterday I had the chance to visit the city of Jerusalem, a place that was not really on my list, but I was really excited to see the city.

From Ashdod were our ship docked it was a 2 hour drive to the city of Jerusalem. The tour itself would take about 10 hours. We covered so much much during this day and a lot of walking was involved. We had 33 guest on board of the bus and while our tour guide was leading the tour I was staying in the back, making sure we did not loose any one. Which was more hectic than I though, because most of the places we went to were packed with people. So many tour groups and once in a while I had guest from other groups coming up to me to ask random question. I had to tell them I was already struggling to make sure my group was fine and not wandering off.

At the end we did loose two people of our group, also our tour guide was pretty relaxed about it, as per him bringing 90% of the people back is still a good average. Lucky they caught up with us later on before we left Jerusalem to go back to the ship.

Our first stop was on top of Mount Olive which gave us an amazing view over the city of Jerusalem and the city walls. Walking down the hill to the city itself was not easy and we had local vendor shouting at us, ever time we did not purchase anything from them. Our guide did a fantastic job walking us through the city and explaining the history of all the sights. We visited a famous site such as Mount Zion and the Room of Jesus last super, stopped at the Dormition Abbey, where I almost got lost (it like a maze in there) and we got to put our wishes and hopes on a piece of paper at the Western Wall.

While it was a lot of walking up and down the streets of the old city, I had a fantastic time exploring the Holy City. I can only recommend coming here to experience it yourself.

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Comments

[Home and Away]

Tour leaders...
Once I was a member of a ski club and lead several trips to various resorts in Europe. We had a firm rule...if you were not on time to catch the bus, you were left behind. Even then, the last person in the bus had to treat everyone to drinks. No one was late. Would this work for cruise tours?

[arianetngh]

I like that idea, have to suggest it to the next tour guide :) The tours usually have a tight schedule, and this particular tour was a full day tour with loads of stops so the tour guide had to be very strict with the timings. Which he did mention at the beginning of the tour. But i like the one that the last person has to get a round of drinks ;)

[Ake Och Emma]

I'd love to see Jerusalem
Jerusalem looks awesome to me. I'd love to walk around randomly and explore the city. Old and well preserved tend to have a lot of exciting hidden parts and interesting nooks and crannies. You typically only find them if you have company by someone with great local knowledge or if you stumble upon them yourself. /Ake