Holy Sepulchre and Way of the Cross

From outside the main door, the Holy Sepulchre does not look very thrilling.

But once you go inside the different styles of chapels and areas is absolutely amazing with lovely murals, scintillating mosaics and fantastic colours.

It is quite difficult to orientate yourself as you go up and down to different levels.  Also, round every corner you come across a chapel which is of a different Christian religion; eg Greek Orthodox and Armenian.

We have not yet had time to go into the tomb as there was a very long queue but we hope to later in the week, but it might have to be at about 6am to avoid the masses of people.  We were told an enormous amount the whole building but it is not possible to remember everything.  Later we went around to the back of the building to discover that it had been much bigger at one time.

After leaving the Holy Sepulchre we walked for ages around the old part of the city visiting The Ecco Homo church and the Lithostotos, St Annes Church and the cave where Our Lady was born.  (There are two of these, depending on the history of each of their religions.)

At the lion gate we went outside the walls.  It was quite frightening to see the soldiers with guns stopping all the vehicles wishing to enter into the Old City

Finally we walked the Via Dolorosa, the route that Christ followed with the cross.

We were left with many memories; the aroma inside the Holy Sepulchre from the jars which contained the same herbs as Mary Magdalene had, the hustle and bustle in the narrow streets through the market area and finally, wonderful freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juices from a stall.