Day 11 - we were warned there would be a lot of walking - and they were right. It is Saturday - the Sabbath for the Jews, so the road to Jerusalem was quiet, virtually no cars, as it was the day of rest. We left Tel Aviv, crossed the coastal plain and climbed up through the forested hills to the Holy City - about 800m above sea level. It is raining and much colder (11degC) up here. It is an old city but well cared for, buildings in good repair - almost 1mill people and spread out over a bunch of hills, separated by deep valleys.
The Mount of Olives was first on the agenda - giving a big view over the old city, Garden of Gethsemane, Temple on the Mount, Jewish Cemetery, Kidron Valley - looking at it was like the pics in the Bible. Hard to believe that we were here - and raining so hard I had to buy a poncho. We went down into the Kidron Valley to the Church of Anguish where Jesus prayed to God to see if he could get out of this tight spot. We then entered the Old City via the Jaffa Gate and had a coffee near to the place where General Allenby received the Ottoman surrender in 1918. We moved on to a reconstruction of where the Last Supper was supposed to have happened and then went to the Wailing Wall - where we all had a good wail while nearby some Orthodox Jew was dancing himself into a frenzy. Lunchtime saw us eating falafel in a Moslem cafe (very nice) and suitably fortified we took on the Via Dolorosa - ‘walking in the footsteps of Jesus’ as the pilgrims from Houston, Texas told us. It was chaos, walking up a steep hill, cobbled street, 1000s of people, worse than getting in a rugby test crowd - all mumbling Psalms, with local traders alongside the trail all trying to sell you some crappy momento. Big business - just like the Camino de Santiago was. We eventually got to te Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the top of Mt Calvary where Jesus got crucified. The crowd crushed in and I began to feel decidedly claustrophobic. Eventually we got out of there and it was a relief to be able to breathe again. We then went to an Austrian Catholic Church that had a good viewing platform over the roofs of the Old City. Finally we called it a day - back to the hotel and a few beers. Whew - never going to do that one again!!