Jerusalem

Our tour across Israel was coming to an end, but we still had to visit Jerusalem - The Holy City. We left it until the very end of our trip as it would take a few days to take in all the sites within the city and in nearby Bethlehem.

After a quick snorkel in Eilat, a resort destination, and hiking both the Red Canyon and En Gedi Nature Reserve, we made our way back to Tel Aviv to return the rental car. We were advised that we didn’t need a car in Jerusalem, which turned out to be so true. Jerusalem has a great public transportation system, so we used the light rail to get everywhere. The traffic in Jerusalem looked insane; this being said from a Torontonian!

After a night’s rest in Tel Aviv, we boarded a train that delivered us to the Holy City in less than an hour. We dropped our bags at the Airbnb and walked about 5 km to Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre. It’s a free museum that focuses on the history of the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective while maintaining an individual voice throughout the exhibitions. Although an emotional walkthrough, it’s one of the best museums we’ve visited referring to both the content and architecture.

Yad Vashem

The next 24 hours was a whirlwind of “in your face biblical and political history” and at times was very overwhelming. Walking through Jerusalem’s Old City’s labyrinth of alleyways and visiting all the historical sights including Mount of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, Via Dolorosa, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, The Western Wall and Dome of Rock, brought to life all our childhood stories, as did our tour of Bethlehem the next day.

But it wasn’t the Old City nor visiting the significant historical sites that made the most impact on us, rather it was our conversations with the locals. We were honoured to sit, for a good part of an afternoon, talking with a young Jewish man in his twenties while savouring a mighty good cocktail at the King David Hotel. We spent time with another young man in his twenties, of Muslim faith, while walking the Old City, and finally we conversed with a Palestinian man, in his 70s, who relayed his experiences living through Nakba.

All of them talked about their families, the past and their ambitions for the future. It is through their stories that we learned how hard it is to live in Israel, especially Jerusalem. The narratives are very complicated and embedded with stress related to relationships within the community and the present day situation. Even as tourists, on a superficial level, we could feel that stress and intensity throughout our travels across the country, especially Jerusalem. But talking to those young men gave us a different perspective; there seems to be potential for small changes.

I guess it’s not just the places we visit nor the experiences we have that tend to be the best part of our travels, rather it’s the stories of the people that leave lasting impressions. It’s the individual stories that breathe life into our travels.

So with that in mind, we hope that through your travels, you spend time with the people you encounter along the way. It’s those encounters that end up being the best part of your trip.

Also, we’d like to thank our new friends, Humi and Nava, for inviting us over for dinner while we were in Tel Aviv. It was so nice to have a home cooked meal!

If you want to see more of our final days in Israel, don’t forget to watch our Youtube Channel. You can find it at the top of the page - just hit the Youtube icon.

Cheers!