Walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem

Jerusalem - the city of pilgrims - which three religions claim as their holy land; a city of such magnificent heritage buildings that your eyes can barely focus on any one thing, but constantly dart all over the place as they find more fascinating sights to feast on.  Today, I was in my seventh heaven as a group of us Gandel scholars decided to go on a 2 hour walking tour of the Old City.  The 30 minute walk to the Jaffa gate was pretty interesting as we checked out the various type of shops, but once we approached the old city, the sense of excitement mounted.  This was more like what we expected from our visit.  All buildings are constructed from the same golden coloured sandstone, which creates a soft sense of antiquity, but the types of structure provide a vibrant mosaic of architectural styles - shrines , massive ramparts and walls, Roman arches, moats, Crusader walls and glistening domes and minarets.  Our guide just happened to be a rabbi, an orthodox Jew and originally from South Africa.  He had a very dry sense of humour and gave us an excellent running commentary.  We walked through the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters along ancient stone footpaths that wound tantalisingly around corners, beckoning us to explore further.
We did not go into any of the holy sites, but had magnificent rooftop views of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Mount of Olives.  The Western Wall was packed with people praying and it was such a thrill just to know that we were were standing and observing scenes that we had all seen in photos, but were actually exploring on foot.  'Wow!' was the most common word heard as we followed our guide.

One of the funniest things we saw was a bunch of Jewish kids shimmy up a cypress tree to get their soccer balls, their yarmulkes falling off their heads and being rescued by their friends. Three of them climbed up high and started to shake the tree vigorously, causing a cascade of dried needles to cover their friends below, who were totally unconcerned- their entire attention being on what the ball was doing. Their teacher sauntered out at one stage, but just ignored them and headed back inside - duty of care certainly not evident - obviously a regular occurrence. No wrapping this lot up in cotton wool. Eventually the ball was liberated from the clutches of the tree, and their soccer game could continue. We could then return our attention to our guide.

We did actually lose one of our party in the winding streets. Poor girl was terrified but it was actually pretty easy to get out. People were very friendly and helpful, especially as they were trying to get us to buy their wares in the suq. After the tour ended, we went into the Muslim quarter for divine falafel and fresh pressed juice. The food so far is so good - lots of Mediterranean titbits, like cheeses, olives, tahini, hummus and lots of salads.

We then got accosted by a charming young Arab man who insisted that we tried all his fantastic spices, giving us tips on how to use it in our food. He then shared his coffee with us, which he explained was freshly ground Arabic coffee plus ground cardoman. So delicious. Of course, by this time, we were huge mates and Skye was only too happy to bargain for a good price on the stunning camel leather handbags. Fun.

We loved meandering around, with no real sense of where we were going, but finally decided to find our way out and return to our hotel. We had walked from 10.30 - 5.30pm. A huge day, aching legs, but very satisfying first exploration of Jerusalem.