Our 3 week housesit was up and it was time to leave Jerusalem, a city we had become so familiar with. We took a bus to Tiberias, located by the Sea of Galilee. We walked uphill from the bus station to our air bnb – which had sensational views. All we wanted to do was stay on the verandah and look out at the lake… known by locals as Kinneret or Lake Tiberias. Our host was a lovely Jewish woman who greeted us warmly, […]
Christianity
Ramallah, Palestine
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 […]
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Famous as the birthplace of Jesus, Bethlehem is a small city in Palestine, whose residents are living with the severe inconvenience and economic impacts of a huge wall that Israel has erected. Not only does it impair residents ability to commute to work in Israel and the West Bank, it cuts many residents off from their own farm land. 🙁 It is illegal for Israelis to travel to Bethlehem (or any other town in Palestine), but plenty of tourists make the short trip from […]
Christian Jerusalem (2 of 2)
Follow the route Jesus walked up to his crucifixion. See churches, his prison and sites where he performed miracles.
Christian Jerusalem (1 of 2)
Jerusalem has so many Christian hot-spots: where Jesus had his last supper (Mt Zion), taught, rested and prayed (Mount of Olives), did miracles, agonised (Gethsemene) and where he was crucified (now Church of Holy Sepulchre). I’ll cover these and more… but first something I should have mentioned in my Holiday Season post… I witnessed and accidentally got stuck in the middle of the Jerusalem March, an event during Sukkot that has people of all nations march for a few hours through the streets singing […]