Israel, Part II
May 8th, 2014 by willmarks
We were booked for two nights at the Dan Panorama in Jerusalem, a perfect locale around the corner from its sister hotel, the King David, with really comfortable and ample sized rooms and very helpful staff. My only issue was that the pool closed at 5:00 p.m., making no sense for tourists who want to spend the day visiting the city followed up by a dip in the water; the operating hours may change in the summer of course, but c’mon!
We had an excellent dinner at Caffit (large and tasty shareable salads, pastas) in the German Colony, a 15-minute walk from our hotel. Our nice waitress was from L.A., and as the daughter of Zionists, had always wanted to live in Israel.
On Friday morning, despite not needing rental cars until Saturday, we had to retrieve the vehicles by noon, as many services shut down until Sunday morning. Leaving the cars at the hotel, we joined Jerry and Ahmed on the blue bus to Yad Veshem, the Holocaust Memorial. We left the girls in the courtyard and took in the intensity of the photographs, the videos, the stories, and the building itself.
Following Yad Veshem, here we are at the Mount of Olives, east of the Old City.
At the foot of the Mount of Olives sits the Church of All Nations, also known as the Basilica of the Agony. Built in the 1920’s, this Roman Catholic Church houses a section of bedrock in the place where Jesus (allegedly) prayed before his arrest.
Before going inside the walls of the Old City, we visited the locale where the Last Supper “may have taken place.” We entered the Old City a bit famished, and found a great hole in the wall for a lunch of hummus and falafel, Tala.
The quality of a meal is partly determined by available play space.
In the Christian Quarter of the Old City, we visited The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus was said to have been crucified and buried.
The Western Wall was fairly busy on this afternoon before the Sabbath and a few days before Passover. Approaching the Wall, it was difficult not to feel the tremendous importance of this sight, the holiest for Jews, due to its being a support wall of the Temple Mount, and thus the Second Temple. Men and women are separated, men to the left; I asked Max to say a meaningful prayer.
Ella inserted her wish into the Wall.
After 3 days touring with Jerry (left) and Ahmed in the blue van, we said goodbye.
In the evening, Max and I took our baseball gloves and ball out to a park near our Jerusalem hotel for a catch. I felt as safe or safer than I would in a San Francisco park.
Later, we made our way down the hill and on to a lovely pedestrian walkway next to the old railway station, and dined nearby at The Culinary Workshop, same owner as the more known and highly recommended Machneyuda, which is closed on Friday nights. We were kindly greeted with a glass of champagne and the food was fine; my steak had too much fat but the burgers were good. The prior night’s venue, Caffit, would be my Jerusalem dinner recommendation.
Much of Jerusalem is shut down on the Sabbath, but the Israel Museum was open; we first entered the Shrine of the Book to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, actually not too exciting. More so was the amazing model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. It shows the topography and architecture of ancient Jerusalem at its peak in 66 AD, just before its destruction by the Romans.
Also “open” on Saturdays is Bethlehem, which we found to be neither Christian nor Jewish; in fact, the city is more than two thirds Muslim today. From the security gates, we felt as if we were entering a different world.
This Bethlehem graffiti says it all. Here is a white dove wearing a bulletproof vest, delivering an olive branch. But the offer for peace is supposedly not working, given the target on the chest of the dove?
Of note, while we felt extremely safe all over Israel, Bethlehem may have taken this sense of security down a notch.
In the afternoon (lunched on gas station snacks), we crossed back through Jerusalem and east to the Dead Sea, stopping for a dip; while floating, the kids could essentially sit in my lap without pushing me underwater. We checked in to the Ein Gedi Hotel. This was convenient for Dead Sea and Masada access, and was on our way down to Eilat, where we would later access Jordan.
On Sunday morning, as we drove up the road to the Ein Gedi dining room, our rental car did not seem to be moving well. When we parked, I discovered the flat tire. Being the handy guy that I am, I sent the family off to breakfast and put on the spare. Evelyn was impressed with the speed of my work…although she did not notice the bent car frame, a result of my placement of the jack in a weak spot. “Really, I’ll have no problem changing this tire, enjoy your breakfast.” Fortunately, I had trusted the words of the rental agent, who assured me that I needed to purchase insurance in Israel, no matter what credit card I was carrying. When I returned the car in Eilat a few hours later, I learned that if not for the insurance, I would have been charged for the flat tire itself, as well as the frame.
Still somewhat on schedule, we started our Masada climb at 8:45 a.m., but the heat was strong almost from the start. Even so, it only takes about an hour to climb the approximately 400 meter high mountain, and it is well worth the walk.
Having done the heavy lifting, we rewarded ourselves with the cable car ride down and smoothies at the base, and then travelled onward to Eilat. Here, we turned in our cars, and cabbed to the nearby Jordan border.
