After having enjoyed the view from the Church of the Redeemer, we went on to the Church of the holy Sepulcher, which was the thing Tim really wanted to see.
It was rather strange, because I had assumed the church would be much more extravagant, but it was quite modest, at least the exterior, as you can see. The interior was quite varied, but heavily inspired by the Greek orthodox monks that take care of it. We walked around the church, and had a look at the (assumed) shrine of Christ. I felt a bit religious (or rather unworthy for not being more so), while Tim liked the historical aspects of it. I partly regretted not having done enough research on forehand, as there were many parts of the church I/we didn't know anything abouts: caves, shrines, holy cracks (!), altars etc. But it was a great experience.
After having seen the holy Sepulcher we decided it was time for lunch. We found a falafel bar in the bazaar area. Good food, but we were completely ripped off when it came to paying. Oh well, we just had to live with that. Everything else had been very cheap, and if that was the worst that would happen, then that would be ok.
Stuffed with yummy falafels and fresh orange juice we went down to the Western wall (aka ‘the Wailing wall’, see earlier post). It was the first place where we actually met some serious security (apart from the airport, of course). There was bag searches and metal detectors. Once in the area by the wall, I was lent a shawl. I thought I was covered (pun not intended) with a basic t-shirt (no cleavage) and shorts that went over my knees, but apparently women had to cover their arms as well (unclean as we are...). I, unknowingly, tried to enter the men's area (women on one side men on the other), but finally made it there. Tim started chatting to a rabbi by his part of the wall. In the end the rabbi gave (read: sold) us two pieces of red string that had touched the holy wall, and hoped we would be blessed with five children! The strings were tied around our wrists (very Madonna). Tim, however, removed his after a while, not knowing if it had any distinctive social connotations. So, I assume we'll only get 2,5 children now. (Which, to be frank, sounds a lotter better than 5! But we are still debating whether that half will be a midget or not.)
Although the Western Wall was impressive, we were in the midday sun, and it was too hot for us. We tried hiding in the shadows of the bazaars, while aiming for the Dome of the Rock. Unfortunately, all access was denied. I think we came mid prayer. Instead, we went for the thing I wanted to do, which was walking part of the Via Dolorosa. It felt a bit ambitious doing all fourteen stations of the cross and, as it soon turned out, some of them were quite hard to discover, but we aimed for a few of them. We managed to do the first few, but then got terribly lost. The Old town has so many tiny alleyways and unnamed streets, and none of them were straight. I think Tim was a it more worried than me - didn't want to end up in any 'bad' areas or so, but I was absolutely calm. As long as you look like a (Christian) tourist you are ok. Finally, we managed to 'get back on track', as we discovered a sign saying we were by the ninth station. Went in to a Coptic monastery, and had a look at some excavations of the really old Jerusalem.
After all this walking, we headed back to central town and the bus station. It was one of the warmest days so far – the taxi driver on the way back said it was 44 degrees outside, and we were absolutely exhausted when we got on the coach. We had been told that Jerusalem would be absolutely dead by three o'clock, because of the Shabbat, but there was still loads of people around (and several open stores) when we jumped on the coach at four. We now headed to Rehovot, a small town between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where we met Tim's friend Dror (Israeli jew) and his wife Magda (Polish catholic). We spent the night at their place, playing with their three-year-old son (who really fancied Tim), eating incredible amounts of food and drinking some very nice Israeli wine and Polish vodka! It didn't take a second to fall asleep that night.
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