Exploring Jerusalem....continued...

One has to go up on the hills behind Jerusalem to get a good view of the city....

This time the gate entered was the Zion Gate....

which allows traffic......

and then on to the Cardo..... not quite as impressive as the Cardo at Jerash in Jordan!

Next ......the Jewish quarter......

The Western ( Wailing) wall....

We of course as females had to go on one side of a barrier.......

...but not to worry... it was easy to get up on a chair to see the male side.....

...then on to  follow the stations of the cross...

....ending up at  the Holy Sepulchre Church.... this is on the spot where Jesus was crucified on the cross.....

....then we wandered through some more busy streets and left the Old City via the Jaffa Gate....

Onwards from Amman to Jerusalem....

 I decided to cross the border from Amman to Jerusalem by the King Hussein/Allenby bridge This actually is much easier to do than it would seem from reading reviews of doing so!
I was picked up early in the morning from my hotel in Amman, which is about an hour from the border.  One has to take a special transfer bus to actually cross the bridge, which is stopped numerous times en route...
Then I was picked up on the Israel side.......
I had decided to stay in the American Colony hotel in Jerusalem as it is old and charming...

.....and has had many illustrious guests, which is what brought it to my attention....

 ....plus it is within easy walking distance to the Damascus Gate.

I was a little taken aback on going through the Damascus gate to find a very bustling city within.....

Some market areas were covered....... 

The streets were very narrow in parts... many with steps... leading to driving problems!

I decided to be patient here and not try to pass!

...and then at the top it opened up!

The walk back to the hotel was interesting.... before visiting I had not realized that Jerusalem was a totally walled city!

Jerash..........

Jerash or Gerasa  was one of the Decapolis cities...under Roman rule.....

It lies north of Amman.....in fact it is relatively close to the Syrian border!

It is a huge roman site.............. with an unusual oval Forum...

The Temple of Zeus was on our way to the South Theatre.......

We were rather amazed to hear bagpipes......Arabian ones...... in the South Roman Theatre... they were there to entertain us tourists!!

Look carefully and you will see markings on the stone seats.....reserved seating!

The Temple of Artemis was a little uphill.....

We were shown that these Corinthian columns were actually sort of blocks built with a dowel type of construction... they actually move in the wind.....

Then on to the North Theatre....

...followed by a walk back to the Forum along the Cardo......

 

...which is amazingly still relatively intact...... and we were not alone.......

This is called the  Nymphaeum..... which would have been built over a water source...

...and we saw a demonstration of how the water channels worked.....

...

...........the highest columns on the Cardo were the fronts of the most important shops!!

and the stone figures showed the goods sold... here was the butcher's shop!

We were very lucky to have a demonstration in the Hippodrome......

 ....and as we visited on the National school outing day....there were school children everywhere!

It will never achieve UNESCO status....... they unfortunately rebuilt with too much new material!