עוד פעם ירושלים | Jerusalem Again

Oranim took us to Jerusalem for a day trip last Thursday. I wasn't really looking forward to it since we had been in Jerusalem three weeks earlier and it felt like I was just there, but it turned out to be the best one of the Oranim trips so far. Our tour guide, Ron, was the best one of the Oranim tour guides, from what I hear, and he took us to places which I hadn't visited on my previous three visits to Jerusalem.

We started the day off with a stop at Armon haNatziv, where there are great views of the Old City and the three valleys that surround it, as well as the surrounding areas. Armon haNatziv was a palace from the British Mandate period. The palace building was taken over by the UN and is currently used as their headquarters for the region.

Then Ron took us to Mount Zion, which is immediately outside the Zion Gate. There, we saw the room where Jesus' last supper is supposed to have taken place (and was later used as a mosque), as well as the site traditionally thought of as the Tomb of King David (despite empirical evidence to the contrary). After that, we went for the obligatory Old City tour (i.e. Jewish Quarter tour), which I had taken twice before, and the obligatory visit to the Western Wall.

After lunch and a bit of time for shopping, the most interesting part of the trip began. We visited the City of David, which was the original Jerusalem created by King David, and actually predates the area we know as the Old City. Oddly, the City of David had no natural source of water, so they actually created an underground aqueduct to bring water into the city in the event of a siege. This aqueduct, built approximately 2700 years ago, is called Hezekiah's Tunnel. Today, one can walk the entire length of the 533-meter tunnel, which we did. It was really really cool.

Pictures from the trip are up here.