Israel, Part 2: Jerusalem and the Dead Sea

Our next stop: Jerusalem! 

Thousands of years of history, countless holy sites of three major religions, bone of contention in the Middle East conflict: Jerusalem quite obviously is not just another city.

We decided to spend four days here to cover at least the basics. Really discovering this city would probably take a couple of months at least...

The famous Western Wall, one of the most sacred Jewish sites, is located in the Old City at the foot of the Temple Mount.

Note the "bridge" on the right: this is the only way for tourists and non-Muslims to get on the Temple Mount (after clearing another security gate).






Thousands of traditional and non-traditional visitors visit the Western Wall every day.











And, yes, people put little slips of paper containing prayers/requests/thoughts into the cracks of the wall. Lots of them.

Recent visitors leaving paper slips: Madonna and president Barack Obama.

Probably they weren't here at the same time. But even if they were, they wouldn't have met: there is strict segregation in place, men and women have to enter separate sections to visit the wall.


Visiting the Temple Mount is possible, although it's required to dress and behave appropriately: this is one of the most sacred sites for both Muslims and Jews.

Getting into the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not permitted for non-Muslims though.

Prayer rugs outside the Dome. ->

Life in the Jewish Quarter, one of the four quarters of the Old City.

The Old City is actually just about 1 square kilometer (0.35 sq mi) in size - until 1860, that was all of Jerusalem, there was nothing outside the city wall.








We made one side-trip into the nearby Palestinian territories and visited Bethlehem:

Signs calling for the freedom of Palestine everywhere. Also, every local business was obviously connected to "Christmas" in some way. - Up: the Church of the Nativity. Not seen in the picture: huge crowds of visitors, just like at all the other major historical and religious sites.

Crossing from Israeli territory into the West Bank and back, while safe, was a bit of a strange experience. It was the last Friday of Ramadan, security levels were high and the heavily armed Israeli military personal at the various checkpoint looked very intimidating. Our Palestinian driver shared his frustration over the current political situation quite openly. - It was obvious and noticeable that, unfortunately, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is far from being resolved at the present time.

Friday is not only the holy day in Islam, but the evening also marks the beginning of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. We stayed at the Abraham Hostel, where they offered a nice social event: group cooking and dinner, plus some intro to Jewish Shabbat traditions. Very interesting, great food and drinks, and lots of fun! 

Time to leave Jerusalem and move on to our next destination: the Dead Sea.

The typical tourist thing to do here: swimsuit up, put on some mud...

... and go swimming - or rather: floating!

One final highlight in Israel: getting up at 5am for the 1h morning hike before sunrise...

... and watch the sun rise over Masada, an ancient fortress on a plateau in the Judaean Desert, an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Very awesome, once we made it to the top! Although word about our presence must have spread and we weren't quite alone: dozens of other tourist groups arrived in buses to do the morning hike with us. 

Time to move on: after returning our rental car in Israel's southernmost city, Eilat, we crossed into neighboring Jordan.  More on this in our next blog post - stay tuned! :-)