Jerusalem Part 3

Our third trip to Jerusalem began with a visit to the Biblical Zoo, which was grand. I was really impressed with both the exhibits and the general layout of the zoo. The landscaping was fabulous and even if there hadn't been any animals there it would have been a lovely place to go for a walk. 

This was an exhibit of giant snails, some of which looked at least 6 inches long. Sadly without anything for size comparison they look like regular snails. 

They had two baby crocodiles who were fighting with each other. 

One of these Leopards only had 3 legs. The sign said she lost her leg in a fight with a male leopard at the zoo in Budapest, so they brought her here where she seemed pretty comfy. 

Oh, the beauty of camouflage!

Raz and Noah's ark visitor center.

This little guy was amazing! He's covered in electric blue dots, I loved it! 

This is one of the several baby Peccaries from their little herd. They are adorable. 

We got to the tiger cage right at feeding time. We didn't get to see them eating, but they got so excited they kept running around the cage, which was amazing, they're so beautiful. 

Dinner time! 

The next morning we explored the city. First we walked to the Monastery of the Holy Cross, which wasn't open yet so we couldn't go inside, but the outside was beautiful. The monastery is set in this beautiful valley surrounded by fields full of olive trees, wild rosemary, and poppies. It was so peaceful here, so quiet and fresh. 

Fallen olives

I wanted to see what an uncured olive was like. Turns out it's pink juicy and abhorrently bitter. I barley tasted a drop of the oil, and I really don't recommend the experience to anyone. 

These flowers simply glowed in the morning sun.

Honeybee on the Rosemary 

After wandering around the fields we headed into town to an area called Nachlaot. It was such a great neighborhood, the architecture, the colors, and the plants all came together to create a whole world away from the rest of the city. I really enjoyed wandering these streets. 

 A group of teenage boys were hanging out in one of the walkways and insisted on me taking a picture of them with Raz. 

Sweet dog. 

thrift shop

We made another trip to the Mahane Yehuda Market  (שוק מחנה יהודה) where I got both fresh and dried dates and they far surpassed all my hops for how delicious they would be. 

We then made our way to the old city where we lucked out and got tickets with a tour group visiting the excavation tunnels at the Western Wall. The tour was phenomenal. Our guide told us about the history of Jerusalem and how the city today is actually meters and meters above the actual natural hillside that originally started this wondrous place. King Herod wanted to build a mighty temple, so mighty that it wouldn't even fit on the mount, so he build a big box on top of the mountain to build the temple on top of. the Western Wall is the remaining west wall of this box built by Herod. As time passed the city was sacked, and rebuilt and sacked again and rebuilt, and eventually the layers of destruction and renewal piled upon each other and the past was forgotten.  The history was rediscovered through the excavation of these tunnels which are just phenomenal. 

Long way down, the Western Wall in it's entirety is enormous. 

Model of the old city

These stones are a trademark of Herod's architecture. The fluting along the edge was his signature on his architectural projects. These stones were huge. some were around 20 feet long, and 4 feet high, and who knows how thick. It's truly amazing that they moved these stones without any modern mechanical aid. one of the women in my group kept telling us that Jews from space came and helped build the wall, but our tour guide (along with a few others...) was unimpressed with her contribution to the dialogue. 

underwater aquaduct system, this was so beautiful. 

Water was still leaking down the walls. 

After the tour it was back to the Western Wall for a brief visit. 

After the Western Wall we took a visit to Jerusalem's 25th international book fair. This was great. Although many books were in English I wish I could understand Hebrew so I could have indulged in more of the literature there. 

My third trip to Jerusalem was really wonderful, I'm looking forward to my next visit!