Jerusalem Day 2 June 7 2023

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For a Christianity history buff like me today was nothing less than spectacular! First breakfast in our hotel, The Dan Panorama. Our included breakfast consisted of an endless choice of amazing and ecclectic nourishment options. There was 5 different kinds of bread from rolls to bagels to sliced bread you cut yourself. There were several European cereals, fresh cooked to order eggs, fresh cooked to order pancakes and fresh brewed coffee. Choices included espresso, latte, Americano, and a wide variety of teas.

The cold foods tables consisted of a variety of cheeses, olives, dates, raisins, hummous, and more. Some of the odd choices included salads, tomato and cheese, tuna salad, peppers, pasta salad and on and on. If you left the table hungry, it was your own fault.

Cathy and I had tickets for the Red Bus, an on and off bus tour that we first discovered during our London journeys. The Red Bus is a double decker bus that has a prescribed route around the city. It has a number of stops where you can get off, explore the area, then catch the next bus and do it again. They had a prerecorded tour guide telling you what you were seeing, the history of that area, and some local color. It was entertaining and educational. You buy the tickets online and the cost is only 70 Shekels, about $21, per person.

We had a short walk, uphill of course, to the starting point right near the American Embassy. The busses start running at 10 AM. This we did not know but, by sheer luck, we got there at 9:45 so we did not have loing to wait. Note to self, always check the starting time of any prepurchased tour.

Our plan today was to head back to the Jaffe Gate and walk through the old city and head to our prearreanged tour of the Tunnels in the Western Wall. On the way, however, we had a major personal adventure.

Many of you many know I am a history buff. My favorite TV channels are the History Channel, the Travel Channel and Discovery. I watch Rick Steves and other travel channel shows religiously (pun intended). I get great ideas form here on what I want to see and do if I ever get the chance to travel to these exotic destinations.

I have studied, read, and watched enough history about Christianity that I feel compelled to visit these amazing sites whenever I can. Jerusalem was the jackpot. On our walk to the Western Wall, we passed through the Christian Quarter and came to the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This ediface marks the begining of Christianity in Rome. Built by Helen, the mother of Constintine, this church holds a piece of the true cross, is built on Golgotha, the site of the Crucifixion, and is the burial place and, therefore, the place of the resurrection of Jesus...a true trifecta.

The church is simple on the outside and modestly ornate within. The entrance leads you to a large stone slab raised a foot above the stone floor. This flat red stone is about 3 feet wide and maybe 8 feet long and is purported to be the place where Joseph of Aramethia placed the body of the crucified Christ to prepare the body for burial. The stone was tested a few years ago and is not scientifically proven one way or the other, but to be in its presence and to touch it with your own hand, well, it is an emotional feeling for sure.

Turning right past the stone, you come to a central room that holds another holy site, the Christian site of the burial and resurrection of Jesus. The tomb is covered by a simple building that you must enter and soon drop to your knees to crawl down under the lip of the cave to gaze for just a moment at the resting place of Jesus. This is the spot held sacred by the Roman Catholic, Coptic, and Greek Orthodox sects of Christianity.

The line was too long for me to enter the tomb so I explored another room to the left of the shrine. I went into a darkened room and there was a chair on a pedestal with a very deteriorated icon on the back of the chair.

Here I was met by an Armenian man who asked me if I wanted to "see the tomb of Christ." I started to say that the line was too long but he said, "Not that one! The real one."

I was a bit confused by him, but he led the way to a small entry in the wall that opened into a cave. Here he told me was the certified tomb of Joseph of Aramethia. In the cave indeed were 5 burial sites with 3 of the graves still sealed. Now I had a flash memory about this very location. On one of the History Channel shows there was some debate as to the actual location of the tomb of Jesus.

We do know that Joseph was most likely a cousin of Jesus, check 1. We are told in scripture that it was Joseph who begged the Sanhedrin for the body; this was confirmed by Roman and Hebraic history, check 2. We are also told that Joseph laid the crucified Christ in a tomb built for himself, check 3.

In this same episode the historians were able to positively identify one of the sealed tombs as the burial place of Joseph's wife while the other grave may have belonged to his daughter, positively identifying this as the tomb of Joseph of Aramethia, check 4. So Cathy and I were invited to enter the tomb on hands and knees to perhaps visit the true site of the resurrection. A moving moment indeed. So while others stood in line I was given a private tour, simply amazing.

After this, we walked around the church and came to another room. This room was very modestly decorated with just a picture frame covering a hole in the wall where you could see a rock fissure illumninated by a spotlight. No idea what that was.

So Cathy and I were now on a mission to find out what this was. We found a docent and asked. He told us that at the hour of Jesus's death there was a major earthquake. I know this is true as it was reported in Scripture and confirmed scientifically by a historical geologist (History Channel again) and further confirmed in the annals of Tacitus, a Roman Historian of the Jewish people. So what we were looking at through that wall was the splitting of the mountain at the moment of his death!

Leaving this area, we had one more sight to see. To the left of the fissure was another window, this time spotlighting a part of the bedrock itself. This stone was brown on one side and blood red on the other. This is the purported site of Golgotha or Place of the Skull and perhaps the exact spot Jesus was nailed to the cross. OKAY, maybe these sites are a little to convenient, or maybe, just maybe, history was written here.

After this we walked back through the City and headed to our noon tour of the Tunnels in the Western Wall. This was another amazing experience.

We learned that only 50 plus meters of the original Western Wall from the First Temple are visible today. Back in its prime, the Western Wall was over 150 meters long. Where did it go?

On stage came King Herod. He wanted to rebuild the temple and so he began a major construction project. First the temple sat on a hill surrounded now by a ghetto of low class citizens and a very dangerous place. First step, he cleared this out.

The next problem was the hill itself. He decided to flatten it! He had his builders construct Roman Arches in all of the lower parts of the hill raising the landscape nearly 95 feet to its current level, covering the ghetto. This also covered part of the original wall!

Now Herod builds the second temple. It gets destroyed by the Romans leaving only 50 meters of the historic original wall. Some archeological digs revealed the Herodian arches and excavation revealed nearly 100 meters of the original wall under the city! Our tour guide took us below the current city and brought us face to face with King Herod's amazing reconstruction efforts. The tour lasted an hour and once again was a History Channel moment!

Not amazing enough? Well, the tour lets out onto the Via Dolorosa, the very street that Christ carried his cross to Golgotha. Yes, we walked back to the Temple on the very same stones that Jesus walked. Now that was awesome!

For lunch we stopped at the Holy Cafe (right outside of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) for some Jewish eggplant and a salad. I had a Jewish beer. All the food and beverage were excellent.

After our exhausting day, we headed back to the Red Bus Stop that took us the rest of the way around New and Old Jerusalem, and back to our starting point. We headed back to our hotel for a rest and a quick shower.

We decided to eat local and walked to an interesting place just two blocks from our hotel. It was called Satay and was a very ecclectic place. Our waitress was in training. After service her compulsory 2 years 8 months in a combat squad, she was now studing criminology and psychology. She was great fun to chat with. When traveling, you will gain so much more talking to the locals, eating with the locals, and just sharing.

The menu had some odd foods like Meager Wings, which are Fish Wings. Now I was confused: fish don't have wings. "Yes, they do," she patiently explained. Ok, I'll give them a try. We ordered the wings and a salad for a starter. I had mussels in a wine sauce; Cathy had shrimp in a olive oil base. Our cook heard we were from out of town and he graced us with a plate of Baked Cabbage Steak with a light sour cream. It was delicious.

The Fish Wings arrived and I swear they looked like giant chicken wings. I looked up Meager Fish and found that this is a type of fish found in the Mediteranean Sea. We both dug in and it was amazing. They had a light hot sauce and a firm meat, just like a chicken wing. Next we had the main course and were too full for anything more.

The cook heard we were not eating dessert. This would not do. He made us a nice dish of vanilla ice cream with tahini and honey with nuts. It was great. Note to self: these folks put tahinni on anything! Our dinner done, I thanked the cook and we walked home where I sat down and composed tonight's blog.

I hope some of you are enjoying the trip as much as we are. Please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question. Feel free to share the web address as well. That's all for now. Goodnight.

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