The Holy Land

I have been working on this for a while. Putting my travels down in black and white. Moving away from my philosophical musings to get back to my roots and the inspirations for my thoughts. I thought I would start with the city where I have spent a lot of time in the past 2 years.

Jerusalem, a city revered and known throughout the world. It gets its name either from the hills it sits on or Shalom(Hebrew for peace). Linguists are still discussing on that. It is the capital city of Israel and an extremely Holy city for 3 religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It has been a center of conflict and war for ages and still maintains a rich heritage, pulling the interests of archaeologists, religious people of the 3 faiths and the inquisitive travelers. Frankly I found it way more peaceful than Bangalore especially on Sabbath.


Now to the points of interest. The most interesting place, historically and culturally is the old city. It has existed from the time of David (0f the David and Goliath fame). It has seen rulers and people of all faiths and ideas. The first striking feature that hits you on entering is the similar stone used for buildings and roads, old or new. The shops are the next in line. They offer souvenirs and religious trinkets of all kinds. My advice is bargain like in Karol Bagh here. Start of with half the price or even lesser, and always pay in shekels, not in dollars or euros.






The first interesting thing to watch out is the church of Holy Sepulchre. It is the place where Jesus was crucified. You could do the 15 stations on Christ. It is extremely crowded on Christian festivals like Good Friday or Easter but it is worth it. Or you could start from the church of Gethsemane from the mount of Olives and cover it all. There is church of Mary Magdalene in Mount of Olives as well, though it is open only on Tuesdays and Thursdays 10-12 am. The remaining stations of Christ which signify important points during the crucifixion are marked in various places and a map is available at the first station where Jesus was condemned. There are also various other churches and the church built by Helen (Constantine's mother) just outside Church of Sepulchre with the underground cistern below is also something to see.There are other remnants of Roman architecture and ruins scattered about. Guides are available especially at the Jaffa gate (there are a total of 8 gates though this one is what I use most of the time). Bargaining does work and some of them may not enter into certain religious places with you (for obvious reasons) so work out what you do want to see and what you want to be shown.

There is also the western wall(wailing wall) which stands as the last remaining portion of the temple which was built in the time of David, destroyed by Babylonians, built again and destroyed again by Romans. Photography is not allowed there from Friday sundown to Saturday until Sabbath ends so if you are the photographic kind make a note. Just behind that are the dome of Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque. Al-Aqsa is the 3rd most holy place for the Muslims while Dome of Rock is where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven with Gabriel. There are also many museums (tower of David is really worth a visit) around there. They can be found without much hassles for the inquisitive ones. On the mount of Olives, there is the church of ascension and in Mt Zion the grave of Oskar Schindler.

Other attractions of Jerusalem include the biblical and dead sea scrolls museum. The city of David is also one long history lesson if you like that. There is also the biblical zoo. Ben Yehuda street is pretty good place to hang out for shopping while if you want malls, there is Malkha mall towards city center and Mamilla mall near Old city. For those who want to party, Talpiyot has a few pubs and discos, There is also a street near Ben Yehuda full of pubs. While there are also a bunch of different restaurants scattered out, my favorite roadside snack would be falafel available in most places and pizza. Falafels near Shuk(City market - Mahane Yehuda) are awesome.