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Feb 15 Not wishing babbling guide, we start off for old city and stumble on Gate of David's Tower.
Find Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Dark and dank interior shored up between narrow arches.
Bend low and enter little vault with Greek Priest at end. Stand looking down on two mellow warm slabs that cover the burial niche in the solid rock below.
Drive up the Mount of Olives, its top covered by British cemetery, hospitals, monastery.
To the Church of the Nativity. The Big Square door's stone lintel walled up solidly to the Norman arch below, the masonry continuing down to the tiny opening that's left, to crouch through. "For a camel cannot enter through a needle's eye."
THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY IN BETHLEHEM The Crusaders' paintings still cling to the top surfaces of the columns, rubbed to their deep red luster by countless people at the figures' height.
Pass into the cave-like crypt to site of the manger, and see the gold star marking the place of Nativity.
Guide points out the three Jerichos.
There lies the Dead Sea with its great depth at our feet, stretching away to the southward, its surface and its mountains dimming away in mist, distance, and sunshine. Back we climb to cold Jerusalem high on bar hills. Pass through the Gate of St. Stephen, out of which he was led to be stoned.
Gate of St. Stephen To Starboard, the door they led the Savior out into the narrow Via Dolorosa.
Another twist and we come upon the narrow lane and the Wailing Wall.
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