Day 8: Walking the Old City

Today started with an early rise and walk the to Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Sunday morning Mass @ 6.30am in Latin! It was sung and quite moving and surprisingly quick (45mins)! Obviously a very busy place on a Sunday, with other denominations competing for time and space. Nonetheless, not many about at that early hour, so we were able to enjoy a good look around.

We then returned to Ecce Homo for breakfast, and then we for a walk to the Mount of Olives. Here we came across by accident the tomb of Mary, during an Orthodox service. Next to which was the Garden of Gethsemane, which contains the place Judas betrays Christ. The remaining garden is now quite small, but contains a few olive trees. 3 of which have been scientifically dated to be over 2000 year old. Perhaps they witnessed some significant events one night?
We continued up the hill past the Jewish cemetery which contains approx 180,000 remains to the place where 'Jesus wept'. This is said to be the place where Jesus rose Lazarus to life. This site contains some old niches and ossuaries from the 1st century CE. This site also provides a magic view back over the old city.
We then had a walking tour of the old city with our guide Jared. This purpose of this walk was not sights, but the everyday lives of the people who inhabit this city. Amazingly, there are approx 37,000 people living in the old city. 27,000 (73%) of these are Muslim, 7,500 (20%) Christian (inc. Armenian) and 2,500 (7%) Jews.
We finished this big 'walking' day with a well earned drink at the Austrian Catholic Hospice.