We gave Nash a trip for graduation. We just told him to find a place relatively close, and with a direct flight connection from Budapest. Turns out two airlines fly non-stop from Budapest to Tel Aviv.
Nash at the Citadel / Tower of David near Jaffa Gate.
On our first day we arranged a walking tour of the old city, which was very helpful to get us oriented. We made stops at many of the main sights in Jerusalem, including Mount Zion and the room of the last supper (above & below).
Nash in the Armenian Quarter.
We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the tour, and then we went back another time ourselves. It is a complex church - with several Christian denominations controlling different parts of the church.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has various shrines and monuments inside, built on or around supposed sites where Jesus Christ did something. This is supposedly the place where Jesus was buried.
We really liked going to see the Wailing Wall. There was a lot of activity going on around the wall - Bar and Bat Mitzvahs being celebrated, with men and women on separate sides of a partition stretching on in front of the Wall.
We also went to the Temple Mount and to see the exterior of the Dome of the Rock.
That afternoon, on Suzanne's recommendation, we went to Hezekiah's tunnel for a knee-deep, half-kilometer walk in the dark through a tunnel built to provide water to the city. It was quite an experience. We're definitely glad we did it.
We booked a couple of tours through the hostel where we stayed. This one was a desert 4x4 tour. We took turns driving this 4x4 vehicle, following our guides in a similar 4x4 vehicle.
We drove out into the desert, up and over a hill and down into a valley by the houses in the photo below.
We then walked along a stream in the valley, which lead to some pools and a small waterfall.
There were some fish in the pool of water, and they kept biting our feet -- an unwanted fish pedicure.
Nash ended up jumping in and swimming for a bit.
The next morning we did a Masada and Dead Sea tour, booked through our hostel. We left at around 3:30 AM, and drove down to Masada near the Dead Sea. We started hiking, in the dark, to the top of Masada, and made it just as the sun was rising over the dead sea (in the background, below). Even at 5 AM, it was hot and we were sweating from the walk to the top.
Great views at the top, though. We were glad we went.
The next stop on the tour was a place called Ein Gedi, a nature reserve with several waterfalls and pools which were great for swimming, or at least cooling off.
We saw several small mammals (large rodents?) lying on the rocks, trying to keep cool in the shade.
We then went to a small beach resort on the Dead Sea.
We tried out the mud.
Nash, giving himself a body scrub.
It really was incredible to see how easy it is to float in the water.
Back in Jerusalem later that day we went to see the place where the pools of Bethesda were located.
We also took a walk out of Damascus Gate over to another sight that claims to have the correct location for Golgotha (see the skull in the rocks) and for the tomb of Jesus Christ.
The supposed tomb.
Another quick trip back inside the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Friday evening, at the start of the Sabbath.
On Saturday we went to the BYU Jerusalem center for church.
We went into the Citadel, which has a lot of interesting history about Jerusalem, as well as great views of the city.
On one afternoon we did another tour, this time of the Mount of Olives. We started at the top, at the supposed site of Jesus' ascension.
We stopped at the Church of the Pater Noster, which includes the Lord's Prayer written in a million different languages (including Indonesian (above) and Hungarian (below)) on the walls.
From a Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, looking back across the valley and into Jerusalem.
One of the last stops was the Garden of Gethsemane, with really old olive trees.
In between tours, we spent hours roaming the streets of the old city, shopping and eating in the narrow passageways.
On another tour arranged through the hostel, we went to Bethlehem. They took us to the hills outside of Bethlehem to a place where shepherds might have been on the night that Jesus was born.
This is a photo of us both in front of the Church of the Nativity (doesn't look much like a church), which is built around a place that claims to be the site where Jesus was born.
One of the most interesting things about the tour was the fact that Bethlehem is in Palestinian territory. In the background above, the apartment buildings are Jewish settlements. Below are the walls around and gates we went through in order to get to Bethlehem.
And one last photo of Nash, eating of course. We had so many good falafel and chicken kebab sandwiches in Jerusalem. Best we've ever had.
