After walking all around the old city of Jerusalem, seeing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visiting the Temple Mount, having lunch, and looking for souvenirs at the Armenian Ceramics Center (we left empty handed, except for a spoon rest for Sally), we arrived at the Jaffa Gate where our taxi had first dropped us off. We were tired, the sun was beginning to set, and we briefly considered going back to our hotel. Fortunately, we rallied and decided to visit the Tower of David (aka the Jerusalem Citadel), a fortress built and expanded by the Mamluks and Ottomans from 1100 to 1300.
We climbed up lots of stairs until we reached the top of the tower. The old city is built on a hill, and the Citadel is right at the top, so the tower provided great views in all directions. This is looking out of the old city, and gives a good view of the walls that separate old from new.
This view of what appears to be a cement hill is the Mount of Olives, which has been a Jewish cemetery for 3,000 years. According to the cemetery’s website, there are 122,000 recorded graves there. My guidebook said this was prime real estate because of its proximity immediately across from Temple Mount, but a quick Wikipedia search just revealed that in Jewish tradition this is also where the Resurrection of the Dead is set to begin.
When we were up on the citadel taking in the view, the call to prayer began. At one point there were at least four, maybe five mosques doing the call. From our vantage point above everyone, it was almost as if the muezzins’ voices were hovering above everyone else, but below us, and the wind was carrying their voices to us to let us in on the secret. The feeling of witnessing something so plainly while also feeling so detached from life down below made the whole thing feel a little voyeuristic. Severin attempted to record the sound on video, but you can only distinguish one or two of the calls and the effect is definitely lost (the video maybe needed to go for 10-20 seconds longer).
View of the Temple Mount:
View of the interior of the citadel behind us, and more Jerusalem sprawl just beyond that:
This has nothing to do with anything, it’s just a cool painted door we saw walking around the narrow alleys of the old city. I’m not sure what the mosque on the top is supposed to be (maybe Dome of the Rock?), but I think the black square below it is the Qa’aba in Mecca.
