Departmental trip to Jerusalem (14 May 2014)

Wednesday was a student-off day, and the Structural Engineering faculty and staff (including secretaries, machinist, computer tech, mechanical tech) planned a day in Jerusalem, and I was invited, too.  The out-going department chairman's, Dr. Oren Vilnay's, father had written a history of Jerusalem, so Oren arranged a tour for us as our tour guide (מדריך).  We picked up one faculty member along the highway at a bus stop, and met two other faculty in Jerusalem.  We started at the Allenby Monument near the bus station.

Central bus station in the background

Oren said the details on the monument represent knights leaning on their swords

 Then we went over to the Mount of Olives, and the lookout to the Temple Mount.

Oren and faculty/staff

Temple Mount

Mercy Gate (שער הרחמים)

(You can see the security gateway to the Kotel in the top left corner)

Dung Gate (שער האשפות)

We went to the base of the Mount of Olives (הר זיתים) to the Dominus Flavus church and the Garden of Gethsemane (גת שמנים) which has some really old olive trees.

 

We walked part way back up the Mount of Olives to a very old cemetery (in very poor repair):

We ended our tour at King David's tomb on Mount Zion, which is a very nice facility.

We ate a very late lunch/early supper at אמא:  lots of salads (tahina, hummus, baba ganoush, tabooli, carrot, etc.) and pita bread to start (and we were ravenous), then our entrees (I had stuffed grape leaves).  Most of the faculty were dropped off at the Central Bus Station because they live (on the weekends) in Haifa.  The rest of us headed south toward Beer Sheva, but as we approached Latrun, one of the professors pleaded for a coffee stop (we didn't have any coffee after supper), which the driver was happy to oblige. Then we continued south, dropped off that same professor at the bus station along the highway, and arrived in Beer Sheva.