The sisters at the convent guesthouse have a nice breakfast buffet for us this morning. We have toast, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheeses, their own yogurt, olives and olive oil from
their olive trees. Our agenda for today is to visit The City of David archaeololgical site, the Pool of Siloam and the Wohl Museum of Archaeology.
We begin by entering the Old City by way of the Jaffa Gate and walk through the Armenian Quarter and the Jewish Quarter to the Dung Gate. Outsite the Dung Gate is The City of David with ruins of a palace that could mostly likely be David's palace. Terrance also took us to "Area G" where we saw ruins of houses from the 7th century BC, an ancient tower, and homes with indoor plumbing! We were able to climb down into the Canaanite (before the Israelites) water system, which is a series of tunnels that connect to the water source of the Gihon Springs. We were able to see the entrance to Hezekiah's tunnel (45 minutes walk through knee deep water) that he had
built to have water
supply inside the city walls during the Assyrian's seige of 701 BC.
The ruins of the Pool of Siloam where Jesus sent the blind man to wash and regain his sight was very interesting. I bought a widow's mite from a young guide at the site. Recently excavated are the remains of a street from Jesus' time.
The Wohl Museum is actually a covered set of ruins of homes of the wealthy during the time of Herod, called the Herodian Quarter. There were some amazing tile floors and nice bathrooms.
Some of us then decide to walk on the city walls of Old Jerusalem. It was an interesting view of the city life from up high. I didn't anticipate how high and how narrow it would be at time
s. I really had to face my fear of heights! After some shopping we had an nice, interesting dinner at the Armenian Tavern.
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