A Greek Island, Santorini

Other passengers told me Santorini is the typical picturesque Greek island. It is what I thought a Greek island would be like and then some. It is the rim of an under water volcano with the town of Fira at 1,200 feet above sea level. I took the cable car instead of the stairs. 

The volcano was one of the largest in 10,000 years when it blew in 1613 BC.  It has erupted less severely as recently as 1950 but, its due for another big one. With our recond of events near-about this ship it should blow up tomorrow sometime just after we've left. At one point this morning there were 6 cruise ships in the harbor.

Three ships around the center of the volcano.

Rhodes

This big Greek island is just off the coast of Turkey and is known as the Island of Knights because of thr Knights of St. John of Jerusalem conquered it during the Crusades. It is thought that it is the name sake of Rhode Island. It has beautiful beaches and a million boats. Rhodes sailors were renowned during ancient times. It was said 10 Rhodian sailors in battle were worth 10 ships.

I rented a little Fiat stick-shift for $25 for the whole day. I drove up the coast and through the hills in beautiful Mediterranean weather, windows open.

Bethlehem and Jerusalem

This was the part of my six month trip that I was most looking forward.  I spent two extremely full days, with an enormous amount of walking, trying to take in as much as I could of the Holy Land. As much as I did see and learn, I barely scratched the surface. I would love to come back and spend at least a month here. There is so much history and religious significance here.  It is both ancient and relevant today to amost every human on earth.

My second day started with Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus and then ended overlooking Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, walking within the walls of the Old City visiting the site of Jesus trial following his path carrying the cross to outside the city gates to his crucifixion on the cross and finally ending up at he Wailing Wall to add my prayer to it.

It was a hard day, a very hard day but, very much worth it.

Diverse faces and religions looking down into birthplace of Christ.

We left the hotel in Jerusalem early in the morning, five of us and our guide Jonathan in a 7-passenger van and headed for Bethlehem. An hour and a half later we arrived outside of Bethlehem at the Palestanian border and switched to a new guide and religions for going to the Church of the Nativity. Our new guide took us quickly through the city to the church and got us within a block.

He also ushered us right in and to the front of the church.  There were over two thousand people in line to view Jesus birthplace but our guide belonged to and attended the church.  His close friend ran the tours. He took us right to the front of the line which saved us a couple of hours of waiting. I didn't feel too bad when a small group of priests were ushered in just ahead of us. No one was upset or seemed bothered by this.

His birthplace is viewed at a lower level where the ground was at that time. There is a silver star in the floor with a large hole in the middle of it for viewing. One person at a time lays on the floor and faces down to look at the birthplace. It was quiet and many people were softly crying. It was moving for everyone; tourists, clergy, nuns, lay-people of obiviosly different religions and sects, all there for the same purpose.

We went from there through the church and outside to find that the crowds had grown significantly larger and day was significantly hotter. Our timing and preference turned out to be a blessing in and of itself with the rest of the hard day ahead of us. We were picked up right outside of the back of the church and returned back to Israel proper and our original guide.

Church of the Nativity

Church of the Nativity

Modern Bethlehem

Inside church

Viewing Jesus birthplace

Section of original flooring from 1686 AD. The rest of it is covered by a wood floor or it would have been worn down by the millions of pilgrims that had visited the church over the centuries,

We returned to Jerusalem and drove to the top of the Mount of Olives over-looking Jerusalem.  The Mount of Olives is actually a long mountain ridge, which is built up as has Jerusalem proper, including where the Hebrew University is located.  The view is spectacular.

View of the Old City from Mount of Olives. The Dome of the Rock is the gold dome and you can see the city wall across the bottom third of the photo, a tan color.

After lunch at the Olive Garden, not the U.S. version (There was actually an olive tree in the lobby.) we tackled The Old City.  We entered through the Jaffa Gate of the walled city and seemed to have stepped back in time 2000 years.

Old Jerusalem is split up into four quarters: the Armenian Quarter which is walled itself within the city, the Christian Quarter, The Muslum Quarter and the Jewish Quarter. We walked from end to end. Into the old streets, which most are like narrow alleys, most covered from sun and weather. 

Tower on wall around the Armenian Quarter

Jewish Quarter

There are steps everywhere and it seems that every square inch of the buildings are occupied by shops. They sold tourist items, clothing, groceries, religious items, fruit and vegatables, spices and coffee, everything you could imagine.

There were service vehicles but, some places even a fork-lift or tiny tractor and garbage cart could not get through.  These were streets made in another era and the buildings were right up against the pathways. And the streets paved with rock were always crowded with people like New Orleans on Mardi Gras.

I only saw one of these little cars.

We statrted at The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is were the tomb of Christ is and a fragment of the stone that sealed that tomb. There are daily mass performed there. It is also the site of His crucifixion.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Shrine over Christ's tomb showing dome and part of skylight

Part of the stone that covered Christ's tomb.

This below and many, including lady in our group, beleave this cave was actually Christ's tomb.

Skylight over Christ's tomb.

Shrine around Christ's tonb.

You can not precisely follow Christ's path to his crucifixion because in the intervening centuries Jerusalem grew and buildings and cross streets were build so that His path cuts diagonally across them,  If fact, He was crucified what was then outside the city walls. The events are marked by numbered stations in which different events occurred.

Staion IX is were Jesus fell the third time. We zig-zagged on narrow streets to reach each marked station. Station VIII is now a Greek Orthodox Monastary. Station VII was a major Roman crossroads.  Station VI is where Veronica wiped face of Jesus.  Station V is where Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Jesus. 

Station IV is where Jesus met his mother after being condemed.  Station III is where Jesus first fell. Station II is where Pontius Pilete placed a crown of thorns on His head and gave Jesus his cross to bare, The first station is the location of where Jesus was condemed to death. It is very moving to be in these places following His footsteps.

Station VI.
  The round patena marker above the two windows on the right indicates the station. Christ's actual path carrying the cross would have been from further on on the right to the left and closer at about a 45 degree angle to the streets.

This took us across the Christian Quarter and into the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall.  This is also know as the Wailing Wall.  It is divided into a men's side and a woman's.  According to the ladies there was a great deal of wailing and crying on that side.  On the men's side there was a lot of praying.  I put my prayer to paper and it was placed in the wall.

Wailing Wall, men to the left.  The women's side is our of my picture to the right.

This put us near the Lion's Gate on the far side of the city.  Out guide ran around and got his van to pick us up there. It was hot-hot so I found some shade under a tree occupied by what appeared from their dress to be Orthodox Jewish rabbis: black pants and suitcoat over a white dress shirt, black homburgs (fedora), full beards and payots.

One approached me, asked my name, tried to take my hand and asked for money to "help the children." I lived in New Orleans too long to not know a scam when I see it. I asked what children and he showed me a picture of himself with about 8 kids and a wife. It made me laugh, so I gave him $5 anyway. My group had caught up with me by now and he and the other "rabbis" had hands on my head giving me a long blessing in Hebrew.  One also tied a red string on my wrist.  I was told it was to signify my blessing but, I thought it might be to tell others I was a gullible mark.

My friends were eating this up as a real thing. There was a group of teenage girls clammering for a "blessing" so I took some strings and helped the rabbis tie red strings to their wrists and in my group as well. I don't think that they ever got that it was a scam.

We waited on our guide who was supposed to call me when he got close to the pickup point but, traffic, because of a three block row buses, was stopped up.  My phone ran out of juice and we couldn't communicate. My little group was starting to panic after about 45 minutes and, as I said, it was hot. I grabbed my "rabbi" and told him it would be a blessing if I could use his phone.

You could tell he had a minor dilemma on his hand. I took the phone from his hand and called our guide and everyone calmed down.  We got back to the ship, about 2 hours away, with traffic, in Haifi just before the last busload of passengers arrived. It was a blessing to not have to wait for that large group to get through customs and baggage checks ahead of us to get back on the ship.