Sunday, February 03, 2008

The Holy City

After waking up from a short nap, I felt refreshed and reinvigorated.

The trip into Jerusalem had been painfully long. However, I was in the city now and I wanted to explore.
The old city of Jerusalem is an amazing place. A gathering of new and old, of genuine and of the tourist trade. Walking through the souqs, it's incredibly difficult to differentiate between the contrasts. Looking at some of the stalls, there were times when I was certain that I was entering a normal shop... only to leave soon after disgusted at the expectations that I would be paying heavily inflated prices.
Still, there is something intoxicating about the city of Jerusalem. I have never seen so many nuns, monks, priests and other religious figures from so many different religions in one place at one time.
The feeling of politics and religion in the air is strong. I could feel the fervour and tensions as I walked about and this was never more apparent than merely by making the short walk from the Damascus Gate through the city to the Jaffa Gate. In the space of several hundred metres, you had literally gone from the beating heart of the Arab Middle East to the shining and clean streets of the modern world.

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