Jerusalem’s Old City is a real microcosm, roughly divided into 4 areas.
The Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters surrounded by monumental defence walls that were built in 1541 by Suleiman the Magnificent. A genuine melting pot.
Each area has is own identity but still shares the great history of the city.
Walking around it looks like a labyrinth at first. But once your inner pigeon gets familiarised with the small streets and corners, you start to know your way around. The Islam area is covered with little candy shops, seeds, spices and a zillion shops stuffed with trinkets. Sales guys are doing their utmost best to sell those to tourists. Nah, not to me.
The main roads are crowded, but once you turn away from them and go your own way, you find a different Jerusalem. Much more relax and closer to the people.
Suddenly midst day the electricity went down in the Old City. Meaning no light anymore in the dense Arab shuk, one of the biggest open air markets where we were at that moment. Since most of the small streets are covered it went pitch black. Like a solar eclipse. Given the reaction and calmness of the people this happens more often. To give you an idea, see below.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a must see. Many toerist do agree. We were able to make it inside just before the big crowd rushed in. And with a big crowd, i mean a BIG crowd. At a certain moment people started to panic and stewards needed to guide and calm down the crowd. The reason of the sudden explosion of visitors were several bus loads of Ukrainian – Polish tourists and sabbath. Since Jewish monuments were all closed everybody started to focus on other things.
