After a long trip with a five-hour layover in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, we arrived in Jerusalem in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Although exhausted from the trip, everyone was happy to be in Jerusalem.
Looking at the map of the Old City with our guide David.
After a few hours of sleep, our guide David came to the hostel to pick us up for our first day in the city. Because today was Shabbat, the Sabbath day, most shops and restaurants are closed and the city is very quiet. David gave us a first introduction to Jerusalem and took us across the Hinnom Valley to the Jaffa Gate.
As we entered the Old City we were immediately immersed in the city’s delightful chaos of religious traditions, as priests in cassocks, Orthodox Jews wearing festive clothing, and merchants pushing carts of bananas passed in the streets around us.
Standing on the rooftops of the Old City.
David then guided us through narrow alleyways onto the rooftops of the Christian Quarter of the Old City, from where we had a fantastic first view of the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount. We also got a taste of the four quarters of the Old City — Muslim, Christian, Armenian, and Jewish — and how each of these quarters is a microcosm unto itself. Then we literally had a taste of the Old City as we took a break for lunch.
After lunch we left the Old City again through the Zion Gate to visit the Dormition Abbey Church and David’s Tomb. After crossing the Valley of Hinnom again to see some First Temple tombs, we took a look at the neighborhoods of Mishkenot Sha’ananim and Yemin Moshe, two of the first Jewish residential areas outside of the Old City. We finished up at the Jerusalem International YMCA down the street from our hostel, known as a center of multicultural Jerusalem and one of the most beautiful YMCAs in the world.
Outside David’s Tomb.
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