Jerusalem Israel Travel Guide- Best Things to Do in Jerusalem

What's going on everybody. This is Island Hopper TV coming to you from Jerusalem, Israel. Let's do it. With a metropolitan population of 1.25 million people, this is the capital of Israel, one of the oldest cities in all of the world and considered a Holy land for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As you can see here, we are originating along the border of Jordan and Israel at the border of town of Eilat. You can check our previous video for that travel guide. It was a late night arrival, but we got an early start the next morning and got some nice breakfast here in Jerusalem. In this Jerusalem travel guide, we hit most of the most important places, including a tour of Bethlehem. So you will want to stick around for that tour of Bethlehem because we drive through the West bank to get there. And if you intend to go there by a private car, this will serve as a valuable guide for you because there are checkpoints along the way. And right here we're actually at the Jaffa gate. This was an old Ottoman gate, 16th century. The Jaffa gate is one of eight gates into the old city of Jerusalem. The others include Zion, Dung, Golden, Stefan, Herod's, Damascus and the new gate. So we're trying a typical bread here. It's called Zata. That was a fluffy and flavorful bread with olive oil and local herbs. And right now we're walking towards the Holy sepulchre, which is where we'll be arriving soon. And as you're walking through here, you'll smell the frankincense burning right now. We're at the gate of the Holy sepulchre and we're going to go inside the walls here. The Holy sepulchre also known as Gilgatha or cavalry by some. Now there's 14 stations of the cross. And this is where Jesus carried the cross to cavalry or Gilgatha. And he was ultimately put on the cross right here where the Holy sepulchre exists. And here is where he was laid in the tomb, making this a very sacred site for Christians who make the pilgrimage here to this location to see each station of the cross. And right here you have station 13. This is where they laid the body of Jesus and cleaned it. Now the Holy sepulchre has been rebuilt several times. Each time rebuilding it, they did use the antiquities of the previous structures for the newer renovation, dating all the way back to the fourth century. This area, this route that you know now as Via Dolorosa are considered the final episodes of passion of Jesus. And now we're walking up to the hill known as Gilgatha and up here you will see several incredible mosaics. And I call it a hill because before it was inside of a church, it was the hill known as cavalry or Gilgatha. I would say when you come to the Holy sepulchre, if you can find a guide to take you here and give you the information, you will feel enriched. And now what we're going to do is head out into the Christian quarter onto Via Dolorosa. Also guys, if you're enjoying this travel guide so far, please consider liking the video and subscribing to this channel. If you enjoy guides like this. Now let's keep going. So as we were cruising the market area here, we stopped to get a mango juice and now we are headed on to the next location with some fresh juice to sip on. This area here is where Jesus was carrying the cross up to Gilgatha, also known as cavalry. And this is where he told the women, cry not, do not shed tears. One of the great things about being in the old Christian quarter here or any of the old quarters really is it's covered. It's cool. It protects you from the sun while you're still outdoors and on a bright sunny day in Jerusalem in early September, that's perfect with the temperature on this day around 84 degrees Fahrenheit or 28 degrees Celsius. All right, so now what we're going to do is we're going to head to the Jewish quarter with us heading over to what is called the weeping wall. And here we are at the weeping wall. You can actually put a kippah on the back of your head or where it happens. You have to wear a head cover. It separated men and women, women over here, men over here. This wall has several names, place of weeping, the Western wall. And the reason it is called the weeping wall or the wailing wall is because it is a place where Jewish people can go to mourn the destruction of the temple and the loss of national freedom. So it is believed that this wall is the Western wall of the old temple and many Jewish people come here to say a prayer. Some more background in history on this wall. It is believed by devout Jews to be the Western wall of the second temple of Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The only surviving structure of the Herodian temple built during the realm of Herod the great. And while we were here, we actually saw three bar mitzvahs going on. That's a big day for some young men. All right, now we've made it to the Jewish quarter. We're going to walk around and see what's lifelike inside here. This is the old Roman Byzantine road here. Center of commerce. Yeah, this old Byzantine road is in great shape considering how old it is and the mosaics and the murals on the wall give you an accurate representation of what it would have looked like to walk along this road. All right, so right down below here is old cisterns. This is where they held the water. Like my friend, the tour guide was saying, you control the water, you control everything. Water is blue gold, especially out here in the desert. And again, another climate controlled quarter right here. You can see it does have a roof, but it still gives you that feel of being outside, which by the way, in the winter time, Jerusalem in December and January can possibly get snow and frost. So it works in both seasons. And in case you're wondering, the elevation of Jerusalem is 2,500 feet. That's 785 meters high above sea level, which is interesting because just under a hundred miles away is the lowest point on planet earth at the Dead Sea. And now we are headed to the Muslim quarter. And just in case you're wondering, there is a fourth quarter. It's called the Armenian quarter. Okay. And now we've made it to Damascus gate, which is the Muslim quarter. And from this gate, you could get to Damascus, Syria in ancient times. When you visit the old city of Jerusalem, it is worth it to go to all four quarters and experience the culture and the diversity of the old quarter. So we were attempting to go to the dome of the rock, but we were told Muslims only. So we won't be able to go over there, but you guys know what the golden dome looks like. And here we are at the birthplace of the Virgin Mary. As you can see all across the old city of Jerusalem, there's many historical sites that have great relevance to modern day history and the religions associated with Jerusalem, truly the Holy land. And what you'll discover is many of these sites actually were caves that had churches built on top of them. What we ended up doing here was going over towards the Mount of Olives. And from the Mount of Olives, we ended up getting a private driver to take us to Bethlehem, which is the birthplace of Jesus. And from the Mount of Olives, you do get an incredible view of old Jerusalem and the dome of the rock. And there is also a large cemetery here. And here you'll notice a large wall and a fence. This is actually as we're heading into the West bank area of Palestine, which is the drive to Bethlehem. You can see the checkpoint and I do recommend you going on a tour or with a licensed tour guide to go here, just because of the security concerns with the gate and getting in and out the drive itself takes about 40 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic and the gate wait time to get from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. And this is what the drive through Palestine to get the Bethlehem looks like. And the reason that it's a high security area is because this is considered disputed land as to who owns the proper rights to the land, but it is ultimately under the control of the nation state of Israel at the moment. And once we got to the birthplace of Jesus known as the church of nativity and the pilgrimage route to Bethlehem, we connected with a local guide to give us more insight. And here we are at the church of Bethlehem. This is where Jesus was born. And as you would imagine, this is a very sacred site for Christians. So when you're here, you will notice many different tour buses here, and it is probably worth your while to make the trip from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. It's right up there with other locations nearby, such as the sea of Galilee or even going up to Nazareth or visiting Jericho. Now, as you guys know about the nativity, it was in a manger and the manger has this church built on top of it. So you go down into a cave area and that is actually the site of the nativity or the manger where the baby was born Jesus. And you can see where I'm kneeling down here. This is actually the place where he was born. And what I really discovered about the ancient times of Jerusalem was living in caves was a very common thing, which is totally understandable because it's cooler inside of the rock caves. As you guys know, nearby here, they also found the dead sea scrolls in caves. Thanks to Joseph who prepared all this and really a nice experience. Thank you. And to finish it all off some tea with mint. Yeah. So you can do some shopping in Jerusalem and that stuff is not originally handmade here in Israel. But if you come out here to Bethlehem and you do some shopping here, you get authentic olive wood made in Israel right here in Palestine. All right. After visiting Bethlehem now it's back to Jerusalem for the 45 minute drive where we will be exploring the city of David and Mount Zion. All right. We're back in Jerusalem from Bethlehem and we're here at the city of David. And the city of David is an archeological site considered by most scholars to be the original settlement of Jerusalem during the iron age and the bronze age. Also considered the birthplace of King David. And it's built on Gihon spring, which you can actually walk down to the bottom of and go through the old tunnel. It's quite amazing. You might want to bring a light though. Down here they do have a spring. You can actually take the wet route and walk through it or you can take the dry route like we're doing right now. And here we are at Zion gate. We're gonna go check out Mount Zion. And here on Mount Zion you can find the room of the last supper and King David's tomb. And this here is where King David's tomb is located. And after a great day of exploring the historical sites of Jerusalem, we decided to stop and get some food and it also gives us a chance to show you we're now on a bus headed to Tel Aviv. See you on that one.