Jerusalem > Jerusalem Experience

Advantages: a travel destination like no other
Disadvantages: We didn't find any that gravely disturbed us.

...and then moved on to Jerusalem for six days, it takes 50 minutes to get there by car. The heat wave we had encountered on our arrival was still going strong but it was much better to endure in Jerusalem whose hills are 800m above sea level, humidity is only about 40% there, sometimes even less. We set out in the afternoon to get a first glimpse of the Old City, the historical and religious heart of Jerusalem. Our hotel was near the Damascus Gate, ...
...the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple by the Romans (70 BC). The place in front of the wall serves as a synagogue, it has been accessible for Jews only after Israel captured the Old City in 1967, at times tens of thousands of people gather there for prayer, men and women prey separately, a fence divides them. When we were there it was just an ordinary day with not too many people. We sat there for a long time taking in the atmosphere, watching ... Read review

Advantages: most beautiful city in the world
Disadvantages: ???

...city ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For us, Jerusalem is our capital, even if the economic center is Tel-Aviv. But only 3 embassies recognize it, all the others are in Tel-Aviv. I know less the new city and it is anyway less interestigng so I will speak to you about the places I visited... - Downtown, all turns around the street Ben-Yehuda, with all its shops and tourists, of religious souvenirs not even casher, its shops of clothing, ...
...we spent the day in Jerusalem and it made me discover a place which I did not know yet: the garden of the Roses, not far from the Knesset. It is a very pretty garden whose characteristic is to be planted only of rose trees which were offered by various leaders of all the countries of the world. Pretty and resting... We also walked in the forest of Jerusalem, still on the Herzl Mount; it appears that one can see hinds and fawns there, ... fine, ... Read review

Advantages: Ancient and vibrant, a city that lives simultaneously in and beyond time
Disadvantages: Prone to acts of war and other forms of madness

...do about the city. Jerusalem is a mosaic built over time by an extraordinary diversity of peoples and cultures. Perhaps most of all, it is a city that for millennia has been at the center of conflict--and that looks ever hopefully for a way to achieve peace. Since King David seized "Salem" from the Jebusites around 1000 B.C.E., it has been destroyed, occupied, and rebuilt many times over. Imperial dominance has been exerted over Jerusalem by the ...
...barriers built to protect ancient Jerusalem against would-be conquerors--unless, of course, you count the barbed wire that divided the city between 1948 and 1967. The Israeli military cemetery on Mount Herzl and pre-1967 Jordanian implacements on Ammunition Hill bring the city's saga of defense and conquest right down to the present. Jerusalemites often maintain firmly that, particularly for Jerusalem, the past lives in the present. Clearly, on ... Read review

Advantages: History, Scenery, Religion, The Old City
Disadvantages: Its the city they all want

...brainpower. All buildings in Jerusalem are made from Jerusalem stone, the same type of stone as the Western Wall, the last remnant of the 2nd Jewish Temple destroyed in 70AD by the Romans, but behind each apartment or complex you’ll find a melting pot worth of history, within each family a rich diversity of Religion, politics and family life. I expected to go to find a city on the edge because of the ‘walking animals’ that blow themselves up and ...
...and make an effort. Jerusalem is built on a mountain, so the weather is beautiful in spring, hot in the summer 80F+, gorgeous in autumn and pretty nippy in winter with rain or snow. The whole of Israel is likened to a deer skin. Just like a deer skin once skinned, you wonder how such a small hide could’ve covered such a large animal, you wonder how Israel (the size of Wales) houses it’s 5+1/2 million inhabitants and growing at the rate of 50k+ a ... Read review

Advantages: Amazing, beautiful
Disadvantages: Dangerous

Jerusalem is the kind of city it is impossible to visit 'blind'. Everyone knows her glancingly. Her name invokes impressions, differing impressions, in people across the globe, and her role in Western Civilisations cannot be underplayed. I was fortunate enough, and I do use 'fortunate' guardedly, to have spent a few months working in Jerusalem a few years back. The city I often now see on my television screen isn't always the happy, hearty, lively ...
...sometimes it is exactly the Jerusalem I remember, the fear, the hate and the entrenched beliefs. Jerusalem is a divided city. Jerusalem has been a divided city for hundreds of years, centuries even. Palestinian East Jerusalem as distinct from Israeli West Jerusalem, The Old City as distinct from the New City, and within the Old City herself, she is, even in this tiny area (for the Old City itself is a fraction of the size of the city as a whole, ... Read review