Tuesday, October 20
Today we enter the Old City through the Dung Gate, ascend the steps to the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site of Islam located on the site of the ancient Temple Mount.
We exit the mount near the Lion's Gate and the Pool of Bethesda. We'll visit the pool and St. Anne’s Church, taking time to sing Amazing Grace to hear the spectacular acoustics of the church.
We will then walk along the Via Dolorosa, a traditional path that remembers Jesus march to the cross, ending at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian Quarter, where we will spend a fair amount of time seeing 1500+ years of history. Along the way we'll stop and see some remains of the Roman Antonia fortress and Jerusalem as re-built by the Roman emperor Hadrian.
We'll loop back towards the Damascus Gate and the Moslem quarter and see the busiest part of the living Old City, where many Israeli Arabs work, shop, and live.
Next, we'll head towards the Jaffa Gate to see the area called David's Tower, but in Jesus' time was the site of Herod's palace and the most likely spot for the trial of Jesus.We'll visit St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Church, believed by many to occupy the site of the home of St. Mark’s mother, Mary, where Peter went after he was released from prison by an angel and possibly the site of the Last Supper.
We continue to the Armenian Quarter to see St. James Armenian Church, commemorating the beheading of St. James -the brother of Jesus. This is the center of Jerusalem's Armenian community.Next, we continue to Mount Zion to visit the Church of the Dormition, a site remembered as the "Upper Room", and some recent excavations.
We well bus across a small valley and visit Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu (“cock crow”), possibly the site of Caiaphas’ house where Jesus was tried and kept overnight. We'll also see some first century steps that Jesus almost certainly walked on.We finish this busy day with a late afternoon visit to the Garden Tomb.
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