a little bit of history here and there.
Today's itinerary:
Tower of David museum at the Citadel
Western Wall tunnel
Walking through the Old City
Rungsit restaurant
Our first stop was the Tower of David museum at the Citadel by the Jaffa gate. Turns out the Jaffa Gate is right around the bend in the road from the hotel--I knew we were close to the Old City but I didn't realize how close. Darin, Mitch, Steve, and I walked, while Carole and Scott decided to take a cab. (Scott still wasn't feeling too well.)
The Tower of David museum is by far the best museum we've been through on this trip. It begins with a model showing the landscape of Jerusalem and continues through the various periods, showing the evolution of the city and describing its various rulers. It explained about the Crusaders and the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and up until the end of the British Protectorate.
We then walked to the Western Wall. It was much more crowded than the day before (a nicer day) and had police barricades everywhere that were being collected. Once we were finally on the tour, the guide told me that Netanyahu had visited the Wall in the morning--it's campaign season; time for photo ops--and all morning tours had had to be cancelled.
The Tunnel runs along the Western Wall heading north, into the Moslem Quarter, which is what caused all the controversy when it was extended a few years ago. Moslem leaders accused the Israelis of wanting to damage the mosques that currently sit on the Temple Mount (where the Second Temple used to stand). This despite the fact that the tunnel runs alongside the wall, not under it or anything.
The Western Wall Tunnel runs by the underground section of the prayer site--men only by the wall, women can come through the tunnel to a small area enclosed by curtains that's well away from the Wall. Blocks of stone forming the base of the esplanade--the guide pointed out one single stone that's 13.6m long--with the original markings from Herod's day have been exposed, along with the various levels of construction form the different eras.
The tunnel got very narrow at some points, to the point I had to turn a bit to avoid hitting rock. I know my Mom (very claustrophobic) would not have liked this tour one bit.
Men were required to wear hats/kippot inside. The Wall, I learned, is considered holy because it was close to where the Holy of Holies used to be in the Second Temple. Men have to wear the kippot because the tunnel takes you to a spot that's even closer to where the Holy of Holies was (even though it would have been several meters to the east of where we were walking). I thought this a little excessive, considering the Temple was destroyed about 1928 years ago and the Holy of Holies has long since been destroyed or lost. But religious fervor runs high among everyone.
The tunnel ends now in the Moslem Quarter, near the Dome of the Rock. This is where tempers ran very high--Steve consulting the map, making pronouncements about where we were and where everything else was--and we split up: Carole and Steve went one way, Mitch, Scott, Darin and I going another. Darin was really annoyed at Steve's typical power technique of studying the map endlessly and making a pronouncement about where we're going.
The 4 of us pretty much followed the path we'd gone over with Micky the day before, although I made some bad turn and couldn't find the Holy Sephulcre. I also led us back to the Western Wall instead of taking a right and getting to the Jewish Quarter. We eventually made it back to the little bakery Micky had taken us to and had a snack.
Mitch and I wanted to buy postcards, so we went to the Moslem Quarter via the Cardo and stopped in a big Western-type shop where we bought lots of postcards and I bought a couple of souvenirs.
We went back to the hotel and I lay down. Darin wouldn't let me sleep, first by keeping the TV on (I finally requested it be turned off), and then by reading.
For dinner we walked to Rungsit, a Thai-Japanese place (Thai food with some Japanese dishes).
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Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com