Friday, June 12 - Our last full day in Israel was very busy.  This morning  our bus picked us up for our visit to Bethany, the home of Mary and Martha and the tomb where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  

Our second stop for the day was The Valley of the Shadow where we could see the St George Monastery that is in a deep valley.  

We had a drive by look at Herodian and stopped for a picture

Since we were close to the restaurant run by Ruth & Boaz where they have the best Falafals in Israel we had to stop for lunch.

Next was a visit to the  church of St Peter in Gallicantu (gallicantu means cock crow) where Jesus spent the night before his crucifixion

  and Peter denied him 3 times.

We went to see the Jewish Quarter of the Old City to see the cardo that was build in 135 AD

and the Golden Menorah that has been built for the 3rd Temple.

Our last stop for our tour was the Garden Tomb where we had a Communion service.

We returned to our hotel and Doron took the Faupels and Patty to the airport.  Bob & Linda caught a cab at 1:30AM for their flight.  Phyllis and I have a couple of days here to rest before we fly to Italy for our next trip.  If you would like to follow that one the address is www.owoectit15@blogspot.com.  Hope you will follow along.

Thursday, June 11 -  After our forced march yesterday we decided to give everyone the day off.  Phyllis took Bob & Linda into the Old City since Linda wasn't feeling well the day before and the rest of us went up to Mt Scopus to participate in the Sifting Project.  The Arabs dug out a lot of dirt under the Temple Mount and the Israeli's hulled it off to go through it.  The Faupels found a piece of glass that dates back to the 2nd Temple Period.

We had lunch at a little Italian restaurant and then went shopping.

Wednesday, June 10 - We started today with a walking tour of the Old City.  Our first stop was the Davidson Center.  The streets and steps in this site are 1st Century and the steps are called the Teaching Steps.  It is pretty much a certainty that Jesus and his disciples walked and sat on these steps,

  Our next stop was the Western Wall

and then continued up to the Temple Mount to the Dome of the Rock. 

We, also, visited the Pools of Bethesda 

and St Ann's Church where we encountered a group from Africa who were singing and dancing around the church. 

Our little group's rendition of Amazing Grace didn't come close to their performance.  However, the acoustics are so good we even sounded ok.

   After lunch at the place that has the best mint lemonade it town

we starting our walk along the Via Dolorosa 

to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

 

There were multiple stops, many having to do with the Easter story.  We had an appointment at 1:30  to visit the Rabbinic Tunnel that runs along the Western Wall.  

 Our next stop was the Model City 

the Shrine of the Book where they keep the Dead Sea Scrolls

and the Israeli Museum

Since we felt like we didn't get enough exercise for the day we went to Ben Yahuda Street and walked to the Old City to see the lights.

By the end of the day we had walked 8 miles according to my Vivofi.  Of course in ancient times the average walk in a day was 20 miles, so we weren't even close.