Jerusalem ...Jerusalem

Getting up this morning we saw a beautiful sunrise over the Dead Sea. We scurried down and tried to get a few pictures. Then the hotel had a scrumptious breakfast laid out for us. I doubt I will lose any weight on this trip despite walking 20,000 steps each day. There’s a buffet line everywhere we look.

We loaded up the bus again at 7:45 and took the highway back up following the road that Mickey refers to as route 66. Our first stop was the ancient sight of Masada. 1/3 of our group hiked up the trail and the other 2/3 took the cable car. When we got to the top Char and I hiked around the one end of the top of Masada. The views were breathtaking and the story sobering. By the time the hikers joined us we went around and actually saw where the Romans built a pathway to break in to the top of Masada. I cannot imagine what it would’ve been like to have been a Jew on the top watching the Romans coming up the side and knowing that there was no escape. I may have been a little excessive on the pictures I took from the top of Masada but feel free to just scroll through.

From there we took the road into Jerusalem. We learned a little bit about some of the different cities and then saw where our guide, Mickey lived. Our driver dropped us off at the top of the mount of olives and we were able to see an overview of the city from there. We also were able to walk down into the garden of Gethsemane where John gave us a lesson from the Bible. It was quite impressive to see the olive trees and to imagine that night when Jesus went there to pray and was then handed over to the Jewish leaders.

Mickey then took us to a little shop that sold olive wood from Bethlehem. He knew the owners and the works were quite beautiful, but expensive. Instead of going and fighting the crowd at lunchtime, we had pizza ordered in and ate in this little shop. The workers there were so quick to serve is and kept putting more pizza on our plates and trying to fill up our juice cups.

We stopped to see the miniature model of the city of David Dash Jerusalem. It was very interesting to trace the steps of Christ in the last few hours of his life.

From there we drove down into the city and saw where the Kinneset net and then went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Shrine if the Book museum. What must have been like to discover one of the scrolls in a clay pot up in a cave in Qumran? The top of this museum is shaped like the lid of a dead sea scroll container

We are now settled into our rooms at our hotel, The Leonardo plaza/Jerusalem. We will be staying here for two nights and exploring the city as best we can for the next two days. We will eat a late supper tonight as we are going to a laser show at the Jaffa gate to see a presentation on the history of Jerusalem. Should be interesting and something totally different. So here we are in Jerusalem!

The last picture is for my brother Bob.