Day 2

Overlooking the Old City, Dome of the Rock behind

Western Wall

Me at Western Wall

Man Praying at Western Wall, Prayers shoved into cracks in the wall.

Broad Wall

Today was a busy day, with a ton of information and sights. My camera battery died about 2/3 way through the day, so some interesting pictures were missed. Thankfully I will be able to get pictures of most of those sights in future days.
We started the day by looking east of the Old City. The Old City is the part of Jerusalem which is surrounded by walls built during the 1500s. We saw the Hotel that President Bush is staying at right now because it is the 6oth Anniversary of Israel becoming a nation. Then we went to the top of a formerly nice hotel, now a hostel, to get a view of the Old City and talk about basic geography.
After this we traveled to the Western Wall. This is the holiest site for Judaism. It is the western wall of the Temple Mount built by Herod the Great in the 1st Century B.C. It is not the wall of the Temple. The Temple was on top of the Temple Mount, also called Mt. Moriah or the Eastern Hill, it is the place which is now occupied by the Dome of the Rock, golden dome. The wall is divided into two areas, one for men and one for women, because it is considered a synagogue an orthodox synagogues divide the congregation for services. The men's are is much larger and has a portion that is covered where one can see the original street level and an arch that was once part of a bridge from the Temple mount to the Western hill. Between the two is the central valley which is no longer a valley because it has been filled in with hundreds of years of debris and construction. The wall is shorter now than Herod built it, probably by 10 to 15 feet. The destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. destroyed a large portion of the Temple Mount as well.
From here we went to the Cardo Road which was the main road in Jerusalem during the Roman period, post 70. It still divides the city but is only an alley now, during the Roman Period it would have been 4 to 5 times wider. I did not take pictures of this because the camera was starting to die and it has no relevance to Biblical Jerusalem. We are lunch at the ruins. We then saw the ruins of the broad wall of Hezekiah, it establishes the northern boundary of 2nd Temple Jeeusalem. It was a massive wall 20 feet thick 30 feet tall. It is on the north side because Jerusalem has valleys to the east, south, and west making all attacks come from the north.
From here we walked all the way up the Cardo to the Damascus Gate. We climbed up inside of the gate to the top of the wall, we walked the wall getting view of many sites on both sides of the wall including, what some people consider the place of Jesus' crucifixion and burial, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Mount of Olives. which then led us to Saint Stephens Gate.
From the wall we went to the pools of Bethesda and St. Anne's church, the only Crusader Church left. After this we wend down the Via de la Rosa, which is supposedly the way Jesus went carrying the cross but the starting point is likely not true.
The trip finished at the Church of the Sepulchre, which is the historically viewed site of the crucifixion and resurrection. It is a church which has several different chapels for different sects of Christianity none of which are Protestant. I was unable to take pictures because of the camera battery but will be going back later, at which point I wll post pictures of both possible location of the death of Jesus and my opinion.
That was the end of a busy day which had a ton of walking. Now to bed and off to the Temple Mount tomorrow at 7:45.