Day 130: Haifa, Israel ... Exploring Jerusalem

Tuesday, 16 May 2017
O/N in port @ TBC

Stats @ Ship’s Time 10:45p (IDT) … UTC 7:45p (16 May)
Temp: 70.9F (21.6C)
Position: 32.49.23N / 35.00.13E

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~

We were finishing up our room service breakfast when Insignia maneuvered into its berth in Haifa, Israel — a port city that was going to get short shrift from us since our sightseeing plans for the two-day call here would be taking us outside the city.

We were all set to disembark the ship at 7:00a, but it was 30 minutes before the ship was cleared by the Israeli authorities.  It took another 20-30 minutes or so to go through the terminal, pick up our passports, have an official look at the passports, and go through the security checkpoint where an x-ray machine was whirring away.  Then the final test — a face-to-face with immigration officials who ran our passports through their system and printed out landing cards complete with a copy of our passport picture.

By 8:00a we were saying shalom [peace] to Boaz, our guide from Guided Tours Israel and piling into the car for our long drive to Jerusalem.  Joining us today were Bill and Star, so our group was a small one.  Boaz used the Waze app to determine which of the two routes to take out of Haifa.  We ended up taking Road 6 (toll) instead of Road 2.  The latter follows the coast and is more interesting.  It’s also a shorter distance, but Waze said Road 6 would get us to Jerusalem 25 minutes faster.  Did it?  Who knows — we had nothing to compare our trip to.  All I know is that it was about 10:30a when we entered the streets of the new city — so it took us about 2½ hours to make the 98-mile (159 km) drive.

In his book Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain noted Israel was a “… a desolate country — devoid of both vegetation and human population.”  Quite the opposite of what we saw today.  The traffic on the road was a good indication of the population growth … as was the number of people we saw in the streets.  What really surprised me along the way was how green the area was.  Boaz said that wasn’t always the case … over 300 million trees have been planted to make it so.

When we finally arrived in Jerusalem, Boaz negotiated the heavy traffic of tourist buses, vans, and cars to take us up to Mount of Olives first.  Tradition has it that this is from where Jesus ascended to heaven after his resurrection.  Here, standing at the Rehavam Observation Point, he read a couple of passages from the Bible to illustrate the story of the area before summarizing some historic facts and pointing out visible landmarks — from the City of David on the far left, to the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount in the middle, to the Mount of Olives Cemetery, and the Church of Mary Magdalene on the far right.  It was an expansive view of the area and starting out from this vantage point was a good way to begin our visit to Jerusalem.

Next up was the Garden of Gethsemane — where Jesus went after the last supper and where he was arrested after he was betrayed.  Boaz drove us down there, hoping to find a parking spot nearby.  None was to be had.  So he dropped us off at the entrance to the garden and went to find parking.  When he returned, he told us about the garden and then led us to the Church of Gethsemane — also known as the Church of All Nations.  While the garden was reasonably peaceful, the church — which enshrines a section of the bedrock where Jesus is said to have prayed before his arrest — was packed to the hilt.

With the parking situation being so atrocious, we decided to leave the car where it was and walk over to the Old City of Jerusalem — inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981.  It was a short walk … easily doable, but partly uphill.  We entered the walled city through the Lion’s Gate, so named for the reliefs on either side.  The sign described it as the Gate of the Tribes and explained that both the gate and the wall were built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent between 1538-1539.

Inside the walled city, we followed the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrow), said to be the route Jesus took on his way to the cross.  We stopped at the first five stations, with one of us reading passages from the Bible at each.  Boaz would then provide additional words of explanation and, where appropriate, give us time to visit the station.  From the 5th station, we detoured to the Western Wall — aka the Wailing Wall.  Constructed of limestone, this is a small segment of an ancient retaining wall originally built as part of the expansion of the second Jewish Temple begun by Herod the Great.  The longer wall encased a hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount.  It is this connection the wall has to the Temple Mount that makes it the holiest site in Judaism.

We had expressed an interest in visiting the Temple Mount, a site that has been venerated as holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims for thousands of years.   In Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain mentions entering Temple Mount: “… But the prohibition has been removed, and we entered freely for bucksheesh.”  I assume he means baksheesh.  There’s no need for that nowadays … just have to go to the right gate at the right time, and wait in line … and, of course, proper attire is essential.

As Temple Mount — known to the Islamic community as Haram Al-Sharif — is under Muslim control, there is only one gate through which we could all enter the site … the other 10 gates are strictly for Muslims.  This gate is open only during specific hours, so Boaz sent us off to ‘meditate’ at the Wailing Wall while he stood in line to hold a place for us until the appointed time.  The line started moving at 1:30p, shortly after we joined him.  Boaz had already left his Bible with a friend, and we had no prohibited items like iPads or religious icons on us, so we passed through the security checkpoint easily enough.  But then Star, who was wearing capri pants, was stopped by the ‘clothing monitor’ and told to cover her ankles.  So, word to the wise … dress in long pants and wear long sleeves to be on the safe side … men and women.

Masjid al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock — both built during the Umayyad Period — are two of the sacred sites located on the Temple Mount.  Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam, literally means “the farthest mosque” in Arabic.  Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammed was transported from the sacred mosque in Mecca to al-Aqsa during the Night Journey.  The Dome of the Rock enshrines what both Jews and Muslims accept as the site where Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son to God.  For Muslims, this is also the rock from which Mohammed began his Night Journey to heaven.  With its golden dome and beautifully tiled exterior, it is considered to be Jerusalem’s most recognizable landmark.

Both of these sites are open only to Muslims.  Since Mui and I are originally from Turkey and grew up in that faith, we attempted to enter both.  We didn’t have our Turkish IDs with us, however, and the guard didn’t believe that I was Turkish … very few people do … even when I am in Turkey.  As he requested, I said a few words to him in Turkish, but when he added an additional obstacle to my admission by saying I had to put on an abaya, I gave up.  Nope, much too hot to do that even if I could find one nearby.  So, I left Mui to go inside both, and wandered around the grounds outside with the rest of our party.
    
We left the Temple Mount around 2:30p and went to Al Buraq, a restaurant named after the legendary horse that carried Mohammed on his Night Journey.  Boaz suggested the owner provide us with a selection of salads and a mixed grill plate to share.  We ended up with every meze on the menu decorating the table.  It was all good, but there was a lot of food left over … especially from the mixed grill plate.  The cost — which was not included in the tour price — came out to about USD $35/person.

After lunch, we continued to follow the stations of the cross on the Via Dolorosa.  We started from where we left off at the fifth station and ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  This is perhaps the holiest of the churches in Christendom because tradition has it that it was built on the site where Jesus was crucified on Golgotha Hill.  The original church, built in 335 AD was destroyed by 1009.  The church that sits on the site today dates back to the 11th century.  The place was packed, both inside and out, with people queuing up in long lines to touch the places where the cross was placed upright, where Jesus was taken from the cross and laid down, and where he was later buried.  We didn’t queue up for any of them but walked by each to see these last three stations before leaving the church.

From the Holy Sepulcher, we wound our way through the city to the room that is traditionally accepted as being the place where Jesus sat down to the Last Supper.  Then on to King David’s Tomb — which by all accounts is nowhere near where he was buried … but tradition says it is.  Boaz and the other guides we overhead all admitted to this spot being an unlikely burial spot for the king, but that didn’t seem to stop people from praying at the tomb — men on one side; women on the other … just like at many of the other Jewish sites around the city … including the Wailing Wall.

By this time we were way behind schedule.  After giving us a meeting point and directing us to a nearby restroom, Boaz went to pick up the car.  We had at least a 15-minute wait for him to show up at the appointed spot … traffic was horrendous … vehicles inside and outside the parking lot trying to make their way around each other and squeeze into every available empty spot.  It was daunting.  Nonetheless, we battled the traffic and continued with our plans to visit Bethlehem.  It took us 45 minutes to drive over to the Palestinian side … luckily there was no security checkpoint to further delay us.

As an Israeli, Boaz was not allowed to guide us in Bethlehem.  This had been explained to me at the time I booked the tour.  After switching to a vehicle with a Palestinian driver, we met up with our Palestinian guide, who took us to the Church of the Nativity … a fairly recent UNESCO World Heritage Site … added to the list in 2012.  Built on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, the current church dates back to the 6th century AD.  Due to our late arrival, we had the church to ourselves … a nice change from earlier in the day when we had to fight the crowds to see the sites.

We entered the church through the Door of Humility — which requires visitors to stoop over to go through it.  From what I understand the door was made small in this manner to deter looters from driving their carts inside, not necessarily to force believers to stoop over in obeisance.  Once inside, we went to the Grotto of the Nativity, an underground cave beneath the church.  It is here that the site where Jesus is said to have been born is enshrined.   In the Grotto is the Altar of the Nativity, and under it is a silver star, open in the center, that marks the exact spot of the birth.  Those who wish to do so can reach under the altar to touch the rock.  The altar is maintained by the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches.  Roman Catholics maintain the section of the cave known as the Grotto of the Manger.  This spot is the traditionally accepted place where Mary is said to have laid the newborn baby in the manger.  The Altar of the Magi is opposite the manger site.

From the Grotto, we continued our visit to the Church of the Nativity by walking through two churches that our guide described as being Armenian and Greek Orthodox.  Then we wandered over to St Catherine’s, the adjacent Roman Catholic church … dedicated in 1347.  This is the church where the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem celebrates midnight mass on Christmas eve.  Since we were so late arriving, the wrought iron gate to the church was already closed.  But our guide spoke with the caretaker.  After a few whispered words, the gate was unlocked so that we could take a quick walk around the church.

We wrapped up Bethlehem with the mandatory shopping stop.  The requirement to visit a shop — don’t have to buy anything — before leaving Bethlehem is a Palestinian one.  My contact at Guided Tours had apologetically explained about it before I booked the tour.  The stop was brief and there was no pressure to buy anything.  But since we were too rushed to shop in Jerusalem, the opportunity to pick up a few souvenirs was welcome this time.

By 7:30p, we were back in Boaz’s car.  The drive back to Haifa took two hours — all the more boring because it was now dark and we couldn’t see anything out the windows.  The one good that came out of the late departure from Bethlehem — rush hour was over and we made good time on Route 6.

With Insignia docked in Haifa overnight, we have another day of sightseeing tomorrow.  Our plan is to visit Acre … but since we got back so late today, we might shift those plans … we’ll decide tomorrow.

© 2015-2017 — All rights reserved by Erin Erkun.