Day 73 - Rock garden

We collected our hire car and we weren't long out of Jerusalem when we started to notice the arid desert environment. We did pass plantations of date palms but apart from that the area seemed to be more conducive to growing rocks than anything else.

It wasn't long before we passed the sea level sign and kept descending until we were around 450 metres below sea level. It was a sunny day so the Dead Sea was bluer than we remembered from when we had visited on the Jordan side on a previous trip.

We arrived at our first stop, Masada and were shocked to get out of the car and find it was 35 degrees. This is officially winter in Israel but the weather had yet to turn so was still unseasonably warm. We walked to the cable car entrance to take us to to Herod's fortress on the plateau above. Once we arrived we were shocked at the line of tourists waiting to get the cable car back and now understood why we saw so many people walking down in the heat. The views from the top cemented the obvious reason why Herod chose this place as a safe place to build a palace and a fortress, it's pretty impossible for anyone to sneak up the sides. Unfortunately the site was full of noisy school groups, and when we were stuck with them in the cable car on the way down it wasn't the best experience.

We then drove not far down the road to Ein Gedi, an oasis in the desert. As we arrived we read that it closes at 4pm and the last entrance is 3pm, we just made it in at 2.59pm. The early closing is to allow the animals quiet time and access to the water without humans there. We had to pass more large school groups who have not heard of turning the volume down, no wonder they give the animals a break! The surrounding landscape for miles and miles is just rocks and desolation so to see a patch gushing water, water falls, greenery, hirax and ibex is quite strange.

We drove onto our reservation for the evening which was just outside Jericho at a place called Vered Yericho, we couldn't stop in Jericho itself as it is in the Palestinian area and we weren't allowed to take our Israeli hire car there. The small town we stayed in was a gated community, we were stopped at a checkpoint and our passports examined, it makes you wonder how anybody could get around the country without official documentation.

Day 72 - Lucky we were carrying our passports

The plan today was to go to Bethlehem but before that we needed to get a public transport card as well as a local sim card. We walked from home to a coffee shop that according to google sold transport cards but they didn't, they directed us to a nearby shopping centre. In there they weren't sure whether the transport cards were required for buses to Bethlehem as it's in Palestinian territory, where Israeli taxis, hire cars and buses aren't permitted (which is why most recommendations online are to visit as part of a tour). They made a phone call and it turns out they weren't. We did get a card anyway as it could be useful for Tel Aviv.  We then went looking to purchase a sim card, it took a while but we finally got one, then it was off to Bethlehem.

Google Maps had good public transport directions, so we had no trouble walking to the bus stop and we just paid cash when we boarded. Getting off at the last stop we ran the gauntlet of taxi drivers wanting to take us to Manger Square and walked there albeit through very quiet back streets. It's always a relief in these situations when you see other tourists, even if they are as lost as us.

We found Manger Square and the Milk Grotto before entering the aptly named Church of the Nativity. Once inside we realised why the streets were so quiet, every tourist in town was lined up for the Nativity Grotto, the birthplace of Jesus. How long it would take for your turn was mind boggling looking at the entire hall filled with a snaking line waiting to get a glimpse.

We decided to walk to the Israeli and Palestinian Separation Wall.  A hideous high concrete wall that in every way resembles a prison wall with towers, which is pretty much what it is. The wall was covered in graffiti and local stories and has become a site popular with the artist Banksy. Banksy has also opened a hotel called the "Walled Out Hotel" where every room overlooks the concrete wall. The hotel had lots of quirky Banksy art as well art from other as other artists.

On the trip back to Jerusalem the bus stopped, a group of local girls got off and then the military boarded to check our passports. Once that was done the girls got back on, showing their IDs as they entered. Unfortunately the bus driver didn't stop where we wanted him to, taking us almost all the way to the old city before he let us get off, luckily it wasn't too far from the restaurant area we wanted to visit, so we only had to back track a little bit.

Day 71 - Jerusalem and the Status Quo

K has a list of things she wants to see in Israel, growing up she would have never imagined that she would get to visit all the familiar names and places, Israel had never seemed like another country but more another planet.

First on the list was the free walking tour that we had booked to meet at Jaffa Gate, one of the entrances to the old city of Jerusalem. Each entrance is named according to where you want to go and Jaffa is the old name for Tel Aviv. We walked there from where we were staying and not far from home we spied a familiar Camino marker on the footpath. This makes sense as we are now in serious Christian pilgrimage territory. We were quite surprised at the size of the walking group but fortunately our guide had a huge voice and expertly filled us in on history, religion and politics over the next two hours. 

We learnt about the different quarters of the city, the Armenian quarter along with the Jewish, Christian and Muslim quarters. Unfortunately when we were outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre/Church of the Resurrection it was so packed with people we ended up losing our tour group. 

After looking for them for a while we gave up and entered the Church that had been built over the site where Jesus had been crucified, buried and raised again. We had learnt that six different Christian religions occupy the church in harmony - the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox. They operate together under a Status Quo decided upon in 1757. A symbol of the status quo is a wooden ladder that was placed outside the church before 1757 which is still in place.

Unfortunately without our guide or internet access we weren't quite sure what we were looking at but were aware of the places of huge significance. Just inside the door was a stone slab that many people were placing their hands heads and items on, this was the slab where Jesus's body was prepared for burial. 

From here we walked to the Western Wall and walked down to the wall watching people praying and inserting their notes into the cracks in the walls (nowadays you can send your message in an email and someone will insert it for you).

From there we left the old city and stopped off at the old city of David, which is the ancient city. Then we walked past the Kidron Valley between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives. 

We found ourselves at the Tomb of the Virgin and right next door is the Grotto of Gethsemane. We finished our day visiting the Garden of Gethsemane before walking home in the dark. We both commented on how safe it felt to be walking in the dark in Israel, even with all the very young soldiers (to us they look 16 years old) with machine guns slung over their shoulders.

Day 70 - Planes, trains and automobiles

We drove an hour and a half from Paphos to Larnaca Airport to catch the 45 minute flight to Israel.  Ben Gurion airport is about halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and our destination to start the "Jesus trail" was Jerusalem. We didn't have any internet when we arrived as our European sim wouldn't work in Israel, but it wasn't a problem as we had already worked out how to get to our apartment in Jerusalem.

Our plane landed at 2.30 and the customs queue was very lengthy but we finally collected our luggage and then went to take the lifts at the airport but were caught unaware by Israeli lift etiquette, which is essentially non-existent. It was every man for himself and whoever can push and shove their way on wins. M made it onto the first lift, K missed out but managed to be the last to squeeze in on at her second attempt.

We then bought our tickets for the fast train to Jerusalem and were told it was leaving from Platform 2, as all the signs were in Hebrew they weren't much use to us. Once again we had to battle the shoving and the elbows to make it on to the train but we were getting the hang of it now and settled down for the 20 minute trip to Jerusalem. About 15 minutes in M realised we were going in the wrong direction, so at the next stop we got off and travelled back to the airport, then waited for the right train. 

By the time we made it to the central railway station in Jerusalem it was peak hour and dusk and the road was super busy. However, we spotted a taxi rank and headed over thinking it would be a simple matter to get a ride to our hotel about 20 minutes away. Surprisingly to us none of the taxi drivers wanted to know us, they said: too much traffic and turned away. 

Our next option was the bus, so M went to purchase a travel card, but he returned with news that the queue was incredibly long so it would take ages. K had been watching people get on the buses, and noticed that most of them didn't use their travel card, we we decided to risk a possible fine and jump on the bus. We found the bus we needed, jumped in the back door with our luggage and hoped for the best. The traffic was terrible, it took as 10 minutes just to get away from the railway station but we eventually made it and were checked in by about 7pm.

We went for a walk down the street to the local supermarket, as we didn't have any internet for google translate K was trying to work out which milk to buy for coffee in the morning. She asked a nearby girl for help who asked "Are you Aussie, where are you from?", it turned out the girl was also from Melbourne (Caulfield as it turns out).

Day 69 - Bombs away

A quiet day today, starting off with a walk to the main promenade area that we had visited each day. There was a police "open day" on and there were lots of locals and tourists there, we witnessed demos of a helicopter rescue from the water, and defusing a bomb (made of a cardboard box and a briefcase). 

We then spent the afternoon booking our accommodation in Israel, which for some reason is very expensive, apparently the only people who don't find it expensive are those visiting from Iceland, which has made M very nervous about what's to come.

Day 68 - Birthplace of a goddess

Today we decided to see more of the island so drove to Petra tou Romiou, which according to Greek mythology is the birth place of Aphrodite. It's a large rock just offshore from a very pebbly beach, many of the pebbles being quite large and very smooth, and sporting on trend colours like pink and grey.

It's actually kind of interesting how many countries have attractions that are really just giant rocks just off the coast, someone should compile them all in to a book and then maybe make a TV series as well, they could get someone like Joanna Lumley, Michael Palin or Simon Reeves to visit this week's "large rock/arch just off the coast". It could include those rocks we saw in Spain, the 12 Apostles, etc, it would be absolutely fascinating and incredibly educational. 

After visiting Cyprus' version of "giant rock just off the coast", our next stop was Coral Beach just north of Paphos, supposedly one of the top beaches in Cyprus, but not really much of a beach by our standards, so from there we returned to the promenade we'd visited the previous day.

Then it was back to our townhouse to watch the sunset from our roof top before heading out for some English style cod and chips (which of course were nowhere near as good as our own flake and chips).

Day 67 - Ruins

K had gone online and booked herself a physio appoinment so we jumped in the car and let google take us through back streets and suburbs with little idea of where we were going.

After the appointment we headed towards the coast to see what it was like, as we had arrived in the dark the previous evening. We headed to Paphos Harbour, and although we could see that it obviously catered to British tourists, the boardwalk and outlook was nice and relaxed.

We walked to the Paphos Archaeological Park a short distance away, and without any great expectations we went in for a look. Like most of these sites it was much larger than expected but where this differed from others was the well preserved floor mosaics depicting scenes from Greek mythology. The colours were strong as was the detail and to think that there were probably more of them buried underneath where we were walking but the expense of uncovering them is so prohibitive.

We then drove to the Tomb of the Kings, another archaeological site only a kilometer or so from for where we are staying. Once again this was much larger area than expected with many empty tombs excavated. We also learnt that there weren't any kings buried here just wealthy locals. A lot of the carving reminded of us Petra which of course isn't that far away as the crow flies.

Day 66 - What's that smell?

Today was a travelling day as we checked out of our apartment in Malta and headed for the airport to fly to Cyprus. We had originally booked Cyprus as our stopover between Lebanon and Israel, so we are now back onto our original itinerary.

The flight was with Emirates on a plane heading for Dubai, it was a large plane with not many passengers, in fact we have never been on a plane with so few passengers - which made us wonder why we had been seated in a row of three with another passenger.

It was dark by the time we walked out of Larnaca airport into a strong smell of cattle. One of the locals said its because "there are lots of cattles around, but it is a beautiful island". We collected our hire car and drove the hour and a half to Paphos along a pretty good highway most of the way, which made the night drive in a strange place (but on the left side of the road) more tolerable.

Day 65 - View from the water

During the night we woke to hear the rain lashing, and considering we are in a closely built up area it had to be severe for us to hear it. In the morning it was still steadily raining so K decided to head for a hairdressers for a long over due tint while M went for a walk around the Sliema peninsula.

By the time we'd had lunch the rain had cleared to the point that we decided to brave a 90 minute harbour cruise that had very good reviews. From the boat we were able to see a totally different view of Malta and learn about its interesting fortress history. All around the various bays and points there are sandstone walls and fortresses, while the marinas in each bay are full of luxury boats along with  local vessels. The tour was well worth it and gave us a better overview of the area that we would have had just sticking to the land.

We finished up with a walk to see the other side of Sliema that M had walked by earlier, it was more attractive than our side and had a great promenade along the coast with lots of swimming areas cut into the coastal sandstone, as well as some nice bars and restaurants.

Day 64 - Drenched

We caught the ferry from our side of the bay in Silema to the beautiful old city of Valleta and followed the other tourists to the centre of the old town. We then walked down to the water's edge to Fort St Elmo and the War Siege memorial, all built from solid standstone.

 By the time we reached the Upper Barrakka gardens we could see very dark storm clouds gathering. We started hurrying back to the ferry port but ended up getting caught in a torrential downpour. We didn't have anything in the way of rain protection so we took shelter in a doorway. The rain eased slightly so we made a run for it, but still ended up drenched.

When we finally made it back across the bay the roads were flooded, so we waded through ankle deep water to our apartment to dry off.