Day 8: To Bethlehem

First day in the Jerusalem area and a group of 11 intrepid walkers arose early and went to the Old City at 6am. Our official tour began with a visit to Bethlehem, 8 km from Jerusalem travelling through the suburbs.  Bethlehem is in the West Bank area, controlled by the Palestinian Authority and the wall built to separate it from Israel is in your face.  Street signs and advertising are in Arabic and English. "O little town of Bethlehem,  how still we see thee lie" - well, one couldn't call it "still" these days - tourist buses, tour groups of all languages, hawkers trying to sell souvenirs, traffic in narrow roads. Yet once you get under the superficial you can see generations of devotion to Jesus the Lord, expressed in the art and iconography.  Bethlehem contains a small and decreasing Christian population. First we visited the Shepherds Field, on the edge of the Bethlehem area, to see caves which may have been where the angel appeared to the shepherds to announce Jesus birth. All Christmas card pictures show gently rolling green hills for the shepherds and sheep - the reality is steep rocky hillsides which are difficult to move around on and very limited pickings for any animals. Next stop was a couple of kms away at the Church of the Nativity, which is going through major restoration.  The origins of this church derive from Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother, in the 4th century.  She "identified" most of the Christian sites in the Holy Land at that time.  There were crowds and queues getting into the grotto cave where Jesus was supposed to have been born - very hot and oppressive in the small spaces. The  complex is controlled by Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Roman Catholic and the decor reflects the 3 traditions.   It also includes the cave where St Jerome translated the Bible into Latin - the vulgate version.  Some magnificent mosaics are on the floor of one of the sanctuaries.  At lunch in a restaurant fitted out as an Arabic tent, numbers of the group tried on the Arabic clothes available to us - like getting dressed up for an old-fashioned photo.  Or maybe it was the grandparents getting out the dress-up clothes when the grandkids couldn't see them. We were scheduled to go to Mount of Olives in the later afternoon, but the general view was that it was time for a nanna nap instead - we've been on the trip for a week now and every day has been filled with action, so time to have a short break.  We'll do the Mt of Olives in a couple of days time. Impressions of Jerusalem:  the city topography is modelled on a rumpled cloth - all ridges and valleys going in all directions where most of the buildings are on the steep slopes;  the roads are narrow and wander up and down the slopes seemingly at random.  Just the opposite of Melbourne!  Streets were very clean.   All buildings covered in a white-cream coloured limestone which gives great uniformity to the cityscape. Photos: In a cave thought to have been used by shepherds in Bethlehem; the Kiama group; walking through Manger Square to the Church of the Nativity; low entrance into the Church; ancient mosaics in the Church; the place in the cave where it is believed Jesus was born; dress up time at lunch - Barrie & Janine, Phil & Lavena, Michael & Cynthia, John & Jenny, Jim & Fi, Shelley.