Netanya to Caesarea and Jerusalem

January 11, 2019

Netanya to Caesarea and Jerusalem

Breakfast at The Seasons

We left Netanya at 7:30 am for our trip to Jerusalem where we will stay for the last 6 nights of our trip.  Our first stop was outside Caesarea to see the impressive Roman aqueduct,  As we walked along the shoreline, we saw lots of pottery shards in the sand dating from Roman times. 

We then proceeded to the ancient Roman Capital and port, Caesarea, built by Herod the Great beginning in 22 BCE.  It took 12 years to build the city on the site of an ancient Phoenician city and Herod dedicated the city to Augustus Caesar.  The West was being brought to the East by a Jewish ruler.  By 6 BCE, the city became the headquarters of the Roman government in Palestine and was used by Pontius Pilate during his term in Palestine. 

We started by walking to the large 4,000-seat theatre that faced the Mediterranean Sea.  The current seating is not all that existed when this was the Roman Capital.  At that time, a third level completed the theatre. 

We then walked to the large palace complex with its huge promontory Palace overlooking the Mediterranean, the Hippodrome, and the streets and storage facilities of the port.  The Hippodrome contained the original seats and remained very much intact as it was 2,000 years ago, because it had been covered with sand most of that time.  The Palace contained a public area, a large section devoted to government and judicial affairs, and the private quarters.  The judicial affairs area would have been where the Apostle Paul would have been prior to sailing for Rome. At the promontory Palace were the remains of the huge elevated, outdoor, mosaic-floored pool that Herod had built on the shoreline.  The entire ancient city was built with granite imported to the area.  Much of it was carried off to build other structures in other Israeli cities over the intervening years.  Water to the ancient city arrived by an aqueduct that originated at the Shuni springs, some 10 km inland.  Herod also constructed a large artificial harbor with a 400 m long breakwater and an area for anchoring boats.  The breakwater has long since sunk and diving visits can be made to the sunken area.  What remain of the breakwater is about 1/3 of the original. 

Latrines at Hippodrome

As we walked through the remains of the city we saw the large baths with inlaid and mosaic floors and other buildings with mosaic floors.  

One of these had an ibex mosaic floor, which was very beautiful.

Street Going Past Warehouses

Breakwater

Adjacent to the Roman ruins are the ruins of the subsequent fortified medieval city built from the 9^th century Arab city. The Crusader fortress incorporated the perimeter wall that surrounded Byzantine Caesarea. Here we walked through the impressive city gate of the Crusader fortress with its Gothic ceiling. 

 

After leaving Caesarea, we headed toward Jerusalem and made a lunch stop along the way.  We arrived in Jerusalem and checked into the Gloria Hotel at 2:15 pm.  At 3:00 pm we assembled for a late afternoon walk in the Old City.  We walked through very narrow walkways past numerous shopping stalls and ended up in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was packed with people waiting to see the religious sites within the church.  

Courtyard

 The church is built over and around what is believed to be the site of Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.  The first basilica, which was huge, on this site was built by Constantine between 326 and 335 CE at the suggestion of his mother, Helena. It was rebuilt, but on a smaller scale on the site in the 1040s, but enlarged by the Crusaders between 1114 and 1170.

As we entered, we encountered the Stone of Unction, which commemorates the anointing and wrapping of Christ’s body after his death.  

The crowds were so large that we were unable to visit the tomb and Golgotha sites.  We will do this on a return visit.  On the lower level is the chapel dedicated to St. Helena who discovered various religious sites and relics in the 4^th century CE.  On the walls are etched hundreds of crosses by past visitors.   

We also visited the Chapel of Adam below the chapel of Golgotha with the crack in Golgotha clearly visible through a glass window in the apse.  In the Syrian chapel we descended through a small doorway into a tiny room where two tombs in the stone wall were visible.   

 We also saw across from Christ’s tomb
 

Jesus' Tomb

the Catholikon, which is the Greek Orthodox part of the building and used for services.

We exited the church through the courtyard and walked to the Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox church, which is the furthermost point of Constantine's original Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Inside was a portion of a first century street.

Remains of 1st Century CE Street

Then we walked toward the Western Wall, which is Judaism’s holiest site.  Because this was Shabbat, hundreds of Jews were heading to the wall to pray.  We passed through security and entered the Western Wall Plaza. 

 

The lower portion of the wall contained the massive stones from the Herodian period of the Temple Mount and the upper sections had the smaller stones from Roman and later periods. Herod’s engineers created the Temple platform by building four retaining walls around a natural hill and filling in.  The Second Temple (original built in the 6^th century BCE) was then greatly expanded by Herod in 37-4 BCE.  It nearly doubled the size of the inner Temple.  The second Temple was destroyed on August 29, 70 CE when Titus took Rome at the end of the Jewish Revolt of 66 CE.  The Arch of Titus in Rome shows in its friezes the victorious troops with their booty from the destroyed Temple. 

We returned to the Gloria via the narrow streets and had dinner at 6:00 pm.  Tomorrow we have a later start – breakfast at 8:30 am and departure at 9:00 am.