Semana Blanca: Israel

Each year, we like to do one non-European trip, just to mix things up a bit. Thankfully Barcelona is a great jumping off point for other parts of the world also, so this year we decided to head to the middle east!

We started the week in the ancient city of Jerusalem. We were fortunate to find a couchsurfing host (which is an awesome international community where you can stay with locals in cities for free), who we settled in with after our late arrival in the city.

We kicked off our time the next day with a free walking tour.  The city today is very evenly divided into four distinct sections: Jewish, Christian, Armenian, and Muslim.  We saw the excavations of old Roman structures, some of which are still in progress.  There was of course the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the traditional Catholic site of the crucifixion and burial), and the Wailing Wall (the remaining part of the Jewish Second Temple).  We also walked along the ramparts of the city wall, and ventured out to the Mount of Olives and saw the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Garden of Gethsemane

One of the possible places where Jesus was believed to be buried

There is a whole life on the rooftops of Jerusalem.

We visited the Israel Museum and experienced a wonderful overload of history, including many of the Qumran scrolls on display and a 1/50 scale model of Jerusalem as it would have looked 2,000 years ago.  Outside the old town, there was a fantastic market filled with all sorts of unique foods and Mediterranean products.  For dinner, we met up with our hosts and then went out into the streets afterward to experience a local festival that night, with live music on almost every corner, arts and crafts, and plenty of interesting people.  Jerusalem is an incredibly vibrant and diverse place.

Although we weren't "done" with Jerusalem, there was so much nearby to see, so we had to move on. We rented a car and drove out through the West Bank and down into the valley which separates Israel and Jordan. We hiked Masada, the fortress built by Herod the Great on top of a massive rock formation.  We also went for a float in the Dead Sea, and then returned to Jerusalem to prepare for our long bus ride the next day and our trip into Jordan.

Masada from the base, it was a steep hike up.