Author: duncan

We returned the rental car in the morning and stayed around Tel Aviv for the day. While we had used Tel Aviv as our launching pad, we hadn’t seen much of the city so far. 

Jaffa is an old city south of Tel Aviv, and we walked along the coast until we reached the old town. We had a delicious Hummus lunch thanks to the recommendation of a friend of ours (thanks Welles!), and then went separate ways. Joe went to enjoy the beach, and I, having gotten a little too much sun in Haifa, went further inland along Rothschild Boulevard.

We reconnected at night and went out for dinner and drinks near our Airbnb. 

We packed up in the morning and took two buses to get to Jerusalem, stopping along the way at a shawarma place we’d really liked a few days before.

Stepping off the bus in Jerusalem, almost everyone we saw was very traditionally or conservatively dressed. We trudged along in our shorts and tee shirts, happy to get what breeze we could on a scorching day. We settled in before heading to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  

Even if you’re a mostly agnostic person as I am, it’s hard not to be moved by the faith of those around you as they visit they holiest site in Christianity. More exploring at night.

We had a great free tour with Sandeman’s in Berlin, so we decided to do the same for Jerusalem. The tour covered a lot of the historical pieces about the four quarters and the various sites we would have been unaware of otherwise. Still, we had done a good amount of wandering through Wikipedia in the days before to acquaint ourselves with the significance of various places. For sites like the Dome of the Rock, it can be hard to keep track of everything that happened there and it’s significance to which religions. 

In the afternoon we took a bus to the Dead Sea to finally do the swimming we were unable to do a few days before.