Day 4 - Friday 13
 

Our second day "on foot" started at St Stephen's Gate where we re-entered the city walls and made our way to the site of the Pool of Bethesda where Jesus healed the paralytic man. Excavations here have revealed the pools and the five doorways referred to in St John's account of the Gospel. Next to the remains is the magnificent Crusader Church of St Anne. The acoustics of this building are incredible and made our small group's rendition of the ancient Irish hymn "Be thou my Vision" sound as if there was a congregation of hundreds. Even after we had stopped singing, the sound continued to echo around the vast interior - a truly moving experience.

Excavations at Bethesda

Leaving St Anne's we continued on to the Church of the Flagellation and the Lithostratos (an ancient Roman pavement under the Church of the Sisters of Zion). We also passed the Ecce Homo Convent built on the site of Herod's Antonia Fortress where Jesus was called before Herod after his arrest. Following the Via Dolorosa and the Stations of the Cross we reached the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Inside the church, possible sites of our Lord's crucifixion and burial are commemorated. A break for lunch introduced us to that great Israeli take-away, the Falafel - pita bread filled with deep fried vegetarian "nuggets" and salad. Our return walk took us through the Jewish quarter of the city and then via "The Cardo" (a restored shopping mall) back through the now extremely crowded narrow streets and entries of the old city to exit via the Damascus Gate once more.  
Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The day ended in the much more serene surroundings of the Garden Tomb. An alternative to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as a possible site of the crucifixion and Christ's tomb, many of us felt a greater sense of peace here.
The Garden Tomb - Jerusalem
 

 

Day 5 - Saturday 14

Back onto the coach today our trip started with a short stop just outside Jerusalem, at Bethany, the home of Mary and Martha and the place where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Our onward journey took us from 2,500 feet above sea level down to 1,280 feet below at the Dead Sea. Here we visited, at Qumran, the remains of a settlement originally inhabited by an ancient Hebrew sect, the Essenes. From here can be seen some of the caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947.

 
Caves in the Judean Desert at Qumran

Heading south along the coast we reached Masada where the former Herodian fortress stands majestically on the mountain top 400 feet above the Judean wilderness. While you can walk up the "Snake Path" our guide thankfully ushered us into waiting Cable Cars for the journey to the top. From there the awe inspiring view over the Judean wilderness, the Dead Sea valley and to the mountains of Jordan beyond, was only matched by tales of the history of the place.

The building of the fortress by Herod the Great, an incredible feat of engineering in itself, its capture by the Jews following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD and its subsequent recapture by the Romans after a 3 year siege. On the eve of the final Roman attack, the defenders of Masada, fearing retaliation and slavery chose suicide over being taken alive by the enemy. When the Romans eventually broke into the fortress via a siege ramp the following morning, they found nothing but 960 lifeless bodies awaiting them.

Before returning to Jerusalem several of our people took the opportunity to swim in the Dead Sea at Ein Gedi.

Masada