Mt. of Olives Tour, part 1

With just 101 days to go, Geoff and I are out to finish our checklist of things to see here in the Holy Land.  We've done pretty well; we've gone north to see the sites in Nazareth, Capernaum, Sea of Galilee, etc., we've hit Bethlehem several times, and we're old pros at the Old City.  But one local area was lacking, and it's one we can see from our balcony--the Mount of Olives.  So when the Consulate offered a 3 hour walking tour, we signed up.  The day dawned bright and clear, and we drove to the top to meet our group.

Our first stop was the Pater Noster Church, the traditional site believed to be where Jesus taught the disciples the Lord's Prayer.  The church, like most here in the Holy Land, is built atop a cave.  It also has tile plaques that display the Lord's prayer in many different languages, even some dead ones.

inside the cave

You can leave your prayers and the Carmelites will pray for you.

 the garden and small church

the cloister

tiles of the Lord's Prayer line the walls

After Pater Noster, we walked to a scenic overlook of the Old City.  It is probably the best place to view Old Jerusalem.  You can see just about the entire fortified city from here.  We looked and also listened to a history of the city, which is quite long!  A lot of the Biblical accounts I knew, and I kind of knew some of the Crusader stuff (albeit, I grew up thinking those were good and noble...different story now!), but it was a fascinating reminder and I was glad to hear it.  The tour guide did not touch on recent history--the 1967 war for example, when East Jerusalem was taken from Jordan.  Folks are still "a bit touchy" about that,  I suppose.

The gold dome is the Dome of the Rock,

which houses the stone from which Mohammad ascended to Heaven.

The cemetery outside of the wall is an Islamic cemetery.

The dark gray dome is Al-Aqsa Mosque, 

which sits atop Temple Mount, just above the Western Wall.

These stone tombs are part of a Jewish cemetery.  

It costs LOTS of money to be buried on the Mt. of Olives, 

because their tradition of rapture states that 

those buried on the mountain will be the first to go to Heaven.