As I mentioned, right by where we petted the kitty, our first stop on Day 8 after the drive back up to Nazareth was the Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. It is not known for sure where the angel appeared to Mary to give her the news that she would be Jesus’...
Today we had a comparatively lighter day. Some travel in the morning as it was time to leave Jerusalem and travel back up north to stay in Nazareth. We had a very nice hotel at the Ramada in Nazareth, best food yet...I loved the little footballs of deliciousness...
This is a newer site, found in the late 1800s I believe. This area was being excavated for something else until ruins were found here. The people that found it and subsequent scholars agree that it is maybe not the tomb of Jesus, but they can’t rule out that it...
We went to a small area of the Israel Museum where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept on display. Well, some of them. I am sorry to say that we were not allowed to take pictures of any of the scrolls that we saw because camera flashes degrade the parchment, so we weren’t...
Very near the Antonia Fortress is the Pools of Bethesda. Right next to the pools of Bethesda is St Anne’s Cathedral. This is one of the few cathedrals that was not destroyed by the Muslims after the Byzantine Era because they turned it into a school, and were...
Pontius Pilate judged Jesus in the courtyard of the Antonia Fortress on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. At the time, the courtyard was open to the sky, while now it is covered over to be the foundation for housing above. Thankfully, they preserved the...
After we went back outside of the church by the ladder no one will move, we went through another doorway and entered a deserted courtyard. These tiny green doors are entrances to the rooms of the Coptic monks that live here in the church. They open up into larger...
This is going to be a marathon. I may have to break it up into components because there is so much here. Choosing pictures to narrow down to is almost impossible because of the richness of the content. I’ll do my best. We start early in the morning by walking...
Today was quite the day. It was our last day with our tour guide, Mike. On day 8 we switched to the “hike” and got a different guide, but retained the same sababa (awesome) driver, Hasim. Hasim has been a driver for 15 years and it shows. Dude is amazing at...
I decided this was as good a place as any to let everyone who cares to know such things, that I visited a shop in the Old City of Jerusalem, just inside the Jaffa Gate, that has been there since the year 1300AD. This business has been handed down from father to son...