Holy Lands Cruise - Bethlehem and Jerusalem

Wow! What a long day!  We spent most of it in Bethlehem, then to Jerusalem before heading back to the ship.

We started at the Shepherds Field, where reportedly the shepherds were  first told about the birth of Jesus.  Dr Maier give the a believability rating of 4 out of 10, saying that it could have been at any cave in this area.  The site is about 3 km from the manger scene so that does make some sense. There is a church built there (as with any other major site!) but the people use that to support the credibility of the site. The church had beautiful murals inside it, but besides the cave where the shepherds reportedly rested, there was not much else to see.

We then visited an olive wood carving factory.  It was very interesting to hear about their wood selection since the trees from this area are dried for 3-7 years before being considered, and wood from higher altitudes is not considered at all due to cracking.  They used a wood-duplicating matching to do the first 80% of the work on their mass market products.  When we went upstairs to the store, we saw that the products they turned out were beautiful, and many with a fabulous 4 figure price.  We did buy a small Holy Family figurine for ourselves (and not the near life-size nativity in the picture, which was priced $35,000!).

Next we went to Manger Square, with three churches: one Eastern Orthodox, one Roman Catholic and one Protestant.  The Eastern Orthodox one has the reported site of Jesus birth. The line to see this moved quite well for 45 minutes, then came to a complete halt for about 20 minutes. We’re not sure what was going on, but apparently some kind of ceremony.  Once the line started moving again we were up against a deadline of a Mass being started there soon, so we were hustled through.  At least we got to see it, if not spend a respectful amount of time viewing it.  This photo with the Star is reportedly the place of Jesus birth.
We finally got to lunch by 1:30 (this is after having an early breakfast at 6 am) and enjoyed a nice buffet.

After lunch we headed to Jerusalem for pictures from the Mount of Olives. The views of the city from there are fabulous, as you can see the entire ancient city.   The wall in the photo was built around 600AD and surrounds the Temple Mount.

 It was starting to get dark as we left there and headed for the Garden of Gethsemane.  We heard a talk about the ancient olive trees there, which become hollow as they age.  We then headed into the Church of All Nations right next door, which had a beautiful mosaic behind the altar.

 After departing,  it was dark when we headed for the Wailing Wall.  It was interesting to see it lit up at night.  Since men and women are required to pray in separate sections, Mary and I split up.  I prayed two psalms at the wall. Since he women's side is smaller than the men's,  Mary was only able to touch it by reacher over several ladys' shoulders.
After that we had a long bus ride back to the ship, where we arrived around 7 pm. Back to Jerusalem tomorrow to walk the Via Dolorosa and see a few other sites.