So I’ve already written a few posts about Jerusalem… but there is a fair bit more that I want to mention that just doesn’t fit under the city’s history, gates, museum, Jewish, Muslim or Christian posts. So here goes some words about a few random things…
Guns. I could not get over the amount of guns everywhere. And we’re not just talking small pistols in holsters attached discretely to the belt but full on semi-automatic weapons flopping over the shoulder as casually as a handbag. We saw a lot of young soldiers (teenagers doing their compuslory military service), especially on buses or at the bus stops. Some were in uniform, some not, and not all carried the large guns with them, but many did. Then there were the heavily armed police who seemed to be stationed everywhere in the Old City. Seeing so many guns is strange for a kiwi, as even our police officers rarely carry weapons and those who have them for hunting keep them securely locked away. So this was really quite strange.
I kind of got used to seeing people in uniform carrying guns but there were so many civilians with them too! From the guy beside me in the bus with a pistol attached to his jeans, to the young 20 something having a drink with his mates in a crowded market place, a large semi-automatic rifle over his shoulder. And it wasn’t just guys, girls too carried guns. Not in Jerusalem but later I saw a whole bunch of girls with huge guns at a tourist site in the desert, no uniforms so not sure why they had them, it seemed so out of place.
On one of our first outings into the city we came across the Tax Museum. Given Antony is an accountant we thought we should check it out. The door was closed so we were going to turn around and go back but a worker nearby indicated we should ring the bell. We did and a lovely helpful lady came out and opened up for us. Everything was in Hebrew but she gave us an accompanying book of English translations. It was taxing 😉
The Austrian Hospice is the oldest Christian guesthouse in Jerusalem, founded in 1854 by the then Archbishop to Vienna. It served the busy pilgrim business until that dried up with the outbreak of WW1 then in WW2 it served as an interment camp for Austrian, German and Italian priests and members of religious orders.
In 1948 the British Department of Health turned it into a military hospital and later in the same year it was taken over by the Jordanians to serve as a hospital for the Arab population of the Old City. In the mid 1980s it was returned to its Austrian owners and after refurbishment has reopened again as a guesthouse. It was lovely – a little oasis right in the heart of the busy streets of Jerusalem. The view over the Old City from the roof was great – everything was so close.
Perhaps you can get a sense from the above photos that the Old City is really crowded. The streets are narrow and mostly just for pedestrians with the odd vehicle fitting through some of them. It feels all very closed in when you are walking in the streets with several story high buildings rising up beside you. Most of the time there were so many people on the narrow streets it was hard to go your own pace – there were so many tourists and locals too, trying to navigate the lanes and many of the pedestrian thoroughfares had shops all along them narrowing the lane further. I took a few photos of the streets in the Old City when it was quiet.
While the Old City got most of our attention, newer areas of Jerusalem were also interesting. Safra Square is a large open plaza home to City Hall (which I wrote about in the Holiday Season in Israel post) and also a nice building that was originally the Russian Hospital.
Just off the Square is the small Daniel Garden – which features a little grass to sit on and a giant vintage radio – where you could change the station and turn up the volume. Popular with kids and adults alike!
The first area to be built outside the city walls is today the neighbourhood of Mishkenot Sha’ananim with its distinctive windmill. The Montefiore Windmill was designed as a flour mill and built in 1857, three years before the first people took up residence here. People were in fact paid to live here as the concept of living outside the city’s walls wasn’t accepted at first. It looks like a nice suburb -really close to both the Old City and the downtown area, not too built up and lots of trees.
Just round the corner is the 5 star King David Hotel, overlooking Mt Zion and the Old City. It’s the large building on the top right of the above picture. Built in 1931 it has been the hotel of choice for heads of state and other dignitaries visiting Jerusalem. It’s guest list includes Madonna, Richard Gere, King George V, Jordan’s King Hussein, US Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump, British PMs Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair – just to name a few. It is famous for being the target of a terrorist bombing in 1946 by the Zionist paramilitary group Irgun. 91 people died and 45 were injured. No trace of that now – all rebuilt and looking lovely – but off limits to us budget backpacking kiwis!
Opposite the hotel is the classiest YMCA I’ve ever seen! Really impressive site and building, dedicated in 1933 after seven years of construction. It was designed by the same guy who designed the Empire State building. It housed the city’s first heated swimming pool, first gymnasium with a wooden floor and until 1991 the city’s only sports stadium. You can see its bell tower in the photo above, to the left of King David Hotel.
From this street it is a short walk to the Mamilla open-air mall. This was not a boring concrete box with a bunch of shops inside like malls in New Zealand, but rather a 610m long pedestrian zone with mostly internationally known shops on either side and an area at the end where people were just relaxing. Not being mall people we would never have gone here, but we were looking for the pharmacy where we could charge up our rav transport cards and were pleasantly surprised at what we came acrsoss.
The transport system in Jerusalem is impressive. For starters you can get ravcards, charge them up and use them on buses, the light rail or on trains, and not just in Jerusalem but throughout the country for local or long distance trips. There were monitors at most bus stops telling you which buses served that stop and how many minutes until the next bus arrived and all routes were on google maps. Buses were frequent and we found getting around really easy. The light rail ran through the otherwise pedestrian only main downtown street and always looked pretty full. We just used it once to get to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.
The only negative around public transport is that it completely shuts down every Friday afternoon for Shabbat, resuming again Saturday evening and also doesn’t run on public holidays. Not only is this a little inconvenient for the likes of tourists but one local we spoke to said they have a car just for Shabbat. They can live without one every other day but for their day off when there’s no public transport they need to be able to get around. I hope the government changes this so that in the future public transport could run 7 days a week – then more people can be car-free.
Not on the ravcard network but with the bonus of being cheaper and running every day were the Palestinian buses. They went to our nearest bus stop so this was very convenient too, we just had to pay cash rather than use our cards. Common on any form of transport was cell phone use! No different to anywhere else- people were glued to their phones, playing games, reading, facebooking, watching youtube or talking.
We saw a lot of e-bikes in Jerusalem (and other places in Israel too). They look different to standard bikes – all had small wheels, lower to the ground and more upright than a normal push bike. I think they are like this so they are easy to manouever (or maybe fold?) when getting in and out of apartments or work place buildings. Many had boxes on the back. We hardly saw any regular pushbikes. We didn’t see a single woman on a bike/ e bike – only men seemed to ride in Jerusalem. With the city’s hills and traffic jams, an e-bike zipping along looked like a far better option than cars for commuting and getting around!
We stumbled upon Train Track Park by accident on our first walk in the city and returned several times. How this park came to be is quite cool. Tracks for the original Jaffa- Jerusalem railway were installed in 1892 and used through until 1998. With a new Jerusalem terminal being built elsewhere, a 7km section from the old main station was no longer needed. From 1998 the unused section of track was neglected, litter dumped here and it was used for off-road parking. To tidy things up the local government made plans to build a road here. People from the community formed a group and lobbied for the area to be turned into a park instead. They protested, organised art events and planted a community garden. In the end they were successful and Train Track Park was constructed in stages between 2010- 2013. It is built over and incorporates in its design the original railway tracks. The 7km long park is made up of a pedestrian path and a cycle track with plants, playgrounds, free book libraries in old bus stops and common spaces along the way. It is hugely popular for joggers and we saw families out walking, people cycling etc. as well.
The original Jerusalem Train station has now become somewhat of a cultural centre with restaurants and shops with a gathering space and stage in front. Twice when we were there music was being perfomed from the stage. The last time was the ‘Afro Jewfro Festival’! It was a pretty cool place to be and Antony really liked the icecream there, hence the multiple visits!
When not out exploring we were at home in our wee apartment in Talpiyot looking after Chairman Meow, working, reading, trip planning, cooking and blogging. It was great to have a 3 week house-sit as there really was so much to explore in and around Jerusalem. In the photo below, the bottom left pic is of the door to our apartment – note the mezuzah on the right edge of picture, common to all Jewish homes. I have no idea what the sign on the door says!
Chairman Meow was quite a character and we quickly became fond of her! She just loved to be near us, so within a moment of lying down on the couch she would be up and flopping down on top of you. She also liked getting her head right inside the shoes we’d just taken off, lying on our stuff, e.g. the dirty underwear on the floor (!), the pile of clean washing on the bed, the scratchy jute bag or our green backpack… none of this looked that comfortable but she seemed to prefer it to the empty parts of the couch or bed! Bottom right pic is after Ants jumped up during dinner to get something and quick as a flash Chairman was up on his seat… she liked to be near us and part of the action! Antony was too kind to push her off although we did keep the spray bottle handy and squirted her with water if she tried to get up on the table. Top right is her drinking from the bath tap.. she prefered running water to water in her bowl!
We found a couple of games at the apartment that we played ourselves and with friends. One was a Polish game that was created during WWII… and just as unfair as war, in this game at a moments notice all your hard work in accumulating the animals you need to win the game could be undone by one unlucky roll of a dice. It was a game where those who had something got more and those without couldn’t get anything. Fun to try something different but not something we’d be playing again anytime soon as it was too ‘luck’ based rather than skill based.
The other game was Exploding Kittens which seems to be really popular with the kids at school back home and was pretty fun. No match for Bridge though which I miss playing and not as strategic as Ticket to Ride, one of our favourite board games.
Right – that about does it for Jerusalem posts I think!! I’ll cover markets and food things in a post of its own down the line. Next up we’ll be exploring the Sea of Galilee!