After Friday's fairly grueling day and late night arrival in Jerusalem's Old City, the morning of Shabbat (Sabbath) was spent on technological issues as I set up shop in the Austrian Hospice. Built between 1855 and 1858 it is a wonderfully romantic edifice with a long and fascinating history you can discover online. I spent the entire morning in organizational endeavors.
Entrance to the Hospice is gained by passing a locked door several steps above the street, an iron gate in the entry hall, and then climbing 17 feet up from street level to the lobby. My room is four more flights of stairs higher and one of only three rooms with private balconies identified by their distinctive double arches on the top floor. The one on the right in the picture below is mine, 78 feet above the teeming masses of humanity below. Believe it or not, this is only $100 per night!
Hospice lobby
The Mount of Olives and the location of Solomon, Hezekiah, the Hasmonean, and Herod the Great's Temples may be seen from the Hospice's rooftop overlook. Remember though that the facade of Herod's Temple was 172 feet square and therefore a bit wider than the colorful base of today's Muslim structure and exactly one whole golden dome higher. Therefore, you can mentally add another golden dome's height to the top of the one you see below and square it all off to the sides of the bottom portion of the "Dome of the Rock" to visualize how big the temple was in Jesus' day.
In the afternoon I set out for the Rockefeller Museum because the website said it was open even on the Sabbath. Nonetheless, it was closed, so I explored the far eastern end of the "Muslim Quarter" instead (the northeast and largest of the not equal "quarters" of the Old City). These meanderings comprised 2 miles of constantly climbing up or down cobblestone streets and stairs on an 86 degree day. But in this area is the Pool of Bethesda where Jesus healed the lame man waiting for "the moving of the waters" in John 5. Centuries of Byzantine and other structures built over the Biblical pool make the original all but unobservable. It lay at the very bottom of all the ruins you see below:
From 4:30 to 5:30 I hung out in the room before walking another 3 miles around the perimeter of the Muslim Quarter shopping for sundries as well as unleavened bread and grape juice for tomorrow's Lord's Supper. At 8:30 a cool breeze was blowing through the dark and quiet streets as I returned to the room and read 2 Chronicles 1-6 regarding Solomon's building of the first temple. By nine o'clock my eyes were closed and visions of temples (not sugar plums) danced in my head.
Total walking distance for the day: 4.5 miles
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