18th June, I love Jerusalem

 Another early start, but we needed to navigate to the train station and catch the correct train to get to Jerusalem. First we bought each of us a day ticket allowing us to go to Jerusalem and back. That done, we arrived at the very flash new train station at 8.22. It's a half hour train journey, with only one stop at Ben Gurion on the way. 

4 two storey escalators, and we were at street level and met our guide for the day - Dan. 

We took the light rail to Jaffa gate, but did not tap our cards, so a somewhat officious officer gave us all fines. Despite them being day passes, we still needed to tap on and off apparently. 

Dan is writing an explanation letter on our behalf. 

So, through Jaffa gate and into an abandoned courtyard. Where are the Arab boys selling budgies? The tea seller, the merchants haggling for a sale.  It's quiet. 

Dan tells me that we are his first tour since October. 

We do come across another tour of people mostly from Australia, and a group of people training to be tour guides, but we almost have Jerusalem to ourselves. It's very hard for everyone, especially those with businesses here, who rely on the tourists for their livelihoods. 

We explore Hezekiah's tunnel and watch some excavating in the city of David. They are recovering part of what they think is the pool of Siloam.

After lunch, and I'm feeling better so I polish off a huge meal of meat and salad and humus and chips, followed  by orange juice, we head back into the city and explore the Armenian quarter and then head to the Christian quarter. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there are about 25 people inside. Last time there were hundreds and queues to get in. 

We still had to cope with the morality police, who decided my knee length shorts weren't long enough so I needed to drape a shawl over them. Then I was allowed to go inside to see the slab of Italian marble that they say Jesus lay. 

We went into the Armenian area, where there are two ancient tomb hewn into the rock, then out into the sunlight. 

We finished the tour at the Christ church with some more interesting stories from our guide. After saying goodbye, we headed back towards the train station, and back to the room. 

Unfortunately we were busy talking about rental cars when the train stopped at our station so we went all the way to the Azraeli centre. There we alighted, walked around the massive 4 storey shopping mall and bought smoothies for dinner. 

We watched a protest on the street hold up the cars, buses and all the other traffic, caught the bus back to a street close to our room and walked home.