The Husk Adventures: Travels in Israel - Mount of Olives and Bethlehem

I’m not sure where to begin. We have had an amazing time in Israel so far touring Bethlehem and the Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday, then on Monday a trip to Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Tiberius, Capernaum, Tagbha and the Jordan River. On Tuesday we traveled from Jerusalem past Jericho to the Dead Sea and on to Masada.

I have taken approximately 500 photos so I have to sort through them for a few to post on this blog.

Even though we started with Bethlehem where Jesus was born and went to the Old City where Jesus’s life ended, I will put my descriptions and pictures in the order of His life.

These holy sites have, over the centuries, had churches built over them, destroyed and other churches built there again and again. For example, Jerusalem has been destroyed by both man and an earthquake and rebuilt 18 times.

     We decided to take tour buses so as to not waste time looking for sites on our own. We would have had a hard time by ourselves being able to enter Bethlehem at all because it is in Palestinian territory and even riding a tour bus required switching from an Israeli guide to a Palestinian guide to take us into the city. Leaving was like running the gauntlet to get out of the fenced and barbed wired territory after walking through the most sensitive metal detector I have ever seen. I never did get it to stop beeping even after removing all metal, including my wedding ring, that I had on me. I think it was picking up my fillings and implants.

     We were surprised at the size of Bethlehem. Expecting a small village, we were told that it had a population of 70,000 people, 80% being Muslim.

     We started our trip on the Mount of Olives where we met our first tour bus. From that location we could see the western side of the Old City of Jerusalem with the golden domed mosque on the Dome of the Rock (summit of Mt. Moriah), the site where Muhammad is said to have risen to heaven. For Jews and Christians it marks where Abraham erected an altar and prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Also at the summit of the Mount of Olives is the site where Christ ascended to heaven.

From there we traveled by Israeli tour bus to the outskirts of Bethlehem where we were met by a Palestinian guide who took us into Palestinian territory to board a bus to visit the sites in Bethlehem.

The photo is taken from the Mount of Olives looking east toward the Old City of Jerusalem. In the distance you can see the walls of the Old City with the Gold Dome of the Rock behind them. Between the walls of the Old City and my location is an ancient Jewish cemetery. On the right side of the picture is part of the Garden of Gethsemane.