The Middle East Part III: The Old City of Jerusalem

This is the last post of our trip... I promise. There was so much do in and around the Old City but one of our favorite things to do was eat off the street vendors. The food was so good! Everything comes in a pita... what's not to love about that?

This is "meat on a stick". Basically a shish-ka-bob put into a pita with salad (tomatoes and cucumbers) and some sauce... delish!

These are spinach, onions and cheese in a pastry crust... double delish!

And this is a falofel... ground chick peas and spices fried into balls and put in a pita with sauce, pickles and french fries!

We probably could have eaten a bit healthier but hey, we were on vacation. These veggies looked really good...

The marketplace shops


A pyramid made entirely out of spices. The smell of curry was strong in this city.

The Church of the Holy Seplechure. This is where the Catholics and other religions believe the Savior was tried, executed and buried. This was an interesting building.

Doesn't he look like Friar Tuck?

The lobby of our hostel

Our room. The ceiling would literally rain rocks and morter on us each night... what else do you expect from an 800 year old building?

We walked along the top of the outside wall of the city.

I just love this picture for some reason.

The Mount of Olives and BYU Jerusalem Center in the middle of the photo.

View of the City

A giant cemetary

The architecture in this city is beautiful! We ran into this on our way to the Holocaust museum.

The Damascus Gate. This is one of the main gates into the city and where basically all of the best food was that we found.

We were pretty lucky to be there over Hanukhah. This is the Western Wall on the last night of Hannukah. They were all celebrating and praying... it was really awesome to see.

This is right next to the Western Wall... I thought it looked like a movie set.

The men and women are separated when they go up to the wall. All the men have to have their heads covered. If they don't have anything there are little cardboard hats for them to use.

The highlight of our trip for me was seeing all the historical stuff we have all learned about since Primary. Being in Jerusalem, especially so close to Christmas and visiting these sites was such a spiritual experience. This is the Garden of Gethsemane. It is just a little gated grove of about 8 olive trees but 2000 years ago it must have taken up much of the hillside.

This hill is Galgotha. You will notice the skull in the mountain. This hill is right next to the Garden Tomb.

There is a bus station right below it now.

This was the most reverent part of the whole trip. I read an article in a 1972 Ensign where President Lee talks about a trip he took to the Holy Land. Read about it here. He describes this place much better than I ever could.

This is the inside of the tomb.

This really was an amazing and very humbling trip and I feel very blessed to have been able to go. It was a great experience to walk where our Savior has walked and we definitely want to go back again one day!