Ramallah, just 10km north of Jerusalem, has become Palestine’s de-facto capital, home to the Palestinian parliament, government ministries and the offices of the President and Prime Minister. Closely associated for me with the Intifada and Palestinian resistance, Ramallah is today the most affluent and liberal city in Palestine and the cultural hub of the West Bank, with many famous Palestinian activists, poets, musicians and artists residing here. We took a Palestinian bus from Jerusalem for the short trip, without much of a plan of […]
Museums
Israel Museum
‘Israel Museum’ is a bit of a misnomer as there are several museums and art galleries in the one place as well as sculptures and models outside. We spent most of a day here during our stay in Jerusalem, starting at the model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period. This was a model of the ancient city at its peak just before the Great Revolt in 66 CE when it was destroyed. The model has a scale of 2cm = 1 metre and […]
Auschwitz
On a lovely sunny day we walked under the Arbeit Macht Frei sign (not the original as it was stolen) into wide, clean streets full of two storey brick buildings at Auschwitz I. Walking further in the area we saw streets full of one storey buidings that resembled warehouses. There was a uniformity and tidiness about these brick buildings that, if you didn’t know the history, could give the impression of a rather pleasant place. We began our visit early in the day, so […]