Today we were on the coach at 8am for the short climb to the Mount of Olives summit. There our driver squeezed between crazily parked cars and we started the tour at the Mosque of the Ascension, which was formerly a Crusader church (built on the site of an original 390AD church) surrounded by a wall and not very inspiring. A short walk away we entered Pater Noster church, which celebrates Jesus giving the Lord’s Prayer. They have beautiful ceramic renditions of the prayer in about 170 languages, with more being added every year. Michelle found one in Italian and read it aloud, and later Neil was very touched to find one in Afrikaans, and read it aloud with feeling, recalling his years living in Johannesburg. Jan found the prayer in her grandfather's Estonian language and Ruth found the Japanese version. There were many groups of people around us speaking different languages.
Down the road apiece we came to Dominus Flevit, which commemorates the Lord weeping over Jerusalem, as this is where the vista of the Old City appears. From here the road follows what was possibly the Palm Sunday route. The narrow walled road gets very steep indeed from there down, with an extensive Jewish cemetery on the left and the gold onion domed Russian Church of Mary Magdalene on the right. Near the bottom we came to the Garden of Gethsemane with its eight ancient olive trees. They are known to be over a thousand years old but as the trunks are hollow, their exact age is not discernible. Yet as olives sprout from the root if cut down, it is highly likely these trees bore witness to the Lord’s agony.
Right beside the garden is the superlative Church of All Nations, the masterpiece of Franciscan Monk and Architect Antonio Barluzzi. Soon after we entered a service began, and some of us were privileged not just to be spectators but worshipers.
All too soon it was on the bus for Herodian, another of ‘Bob the Builders’ mad edifices. This was Herod the Great's tomb, and had a commanding view from the Dead Sea to Jerusalem. Then it was on to Ruth’s Restaurant in Bethlehem for falafels. (Ruth and Boaz were Bethlehemites).
Our final destination was on the road to Tel Aviv, through very rugged countryside which showed the results of determined efforts by Israelis to plant trees. The forested hillsides were in stark contrast to the barrenness of the West Bank area we had left. We stopped in the Palestinian town of Abu Ghosh to see the magnificent Benedictine Monastery built in 1140 to mark the site the Crusaders thought was Emmaus. (It might be, but a couple of other places also make that claim). Some of our folk were singing in the crypt, and the sound drifted up and echoed around the ancient columns.
The drive showed us what a very extensive and rugged city Jerusalem is; an engineer’s nightmare. Buildings cling to ridges with steep sided valleys in all directions. Traffic is heavy and it’s quite noisy with the balcony door open. Police cars honk like geese, and everyone uses the car horn freely. Our hotel is opposite the ultra-orthodox neighbourhood of Mea Shearim and we see men in long black coats and black felt hats mix it with commuters of all sorts on the trams, buses, motor scooters and bicycles. Ours is one of three or four hotels in this street, which are also used for billeting IDF personnel – you may find yourself in a lift with an off-duty soldier and his machine gun! The city is bristling with soldiers, a reminder of two thousand years ago.
By Michael & Cynthia
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