Holy Land Day 8 - Hezekiah's Tunnel

Today was our first full free day, and we started by braving the public transportation. Jerusalem has a new-ish light rail system that’s actually pretty nice, and there’s a stop near our hotel, as well as one next to Damascus Gate, so that worked out really well.

We had a tour scheduled for Hezekiah’s tunnel at 10 a.m., so we left our hotel at 8:45, which gave us just enough time to get a little bit lost twice and get there right on time. So I was pretty pleased with that. We ended up on a full guided tour of the City of David archaeological site, which was neat. A lot has been excavated since I was there before, and it’s almost like a whole new experience.

The tunnel itself was neat, of course. Matthew really enjoyed it, he said it combined two of his favorite things: history and adventure. We forgot to bring flashlights, but another member of our group was kind enough to offer up their extra, and I was able to use my phone. And at least once, I actually turned my light off, because I could follow well enough along with the light from in front of me.

 

After the tunnel tour, we were told we could walk around the outside of the site or through a dark tunnel going upward back to the start, and we opted for the dark tunnel. It was a tight squeeze for Matthew in some spots, but at the end we were rewarded with a whole secret excavation site that isn’t visible via any other route (as far as we could tell). So we felt pretty cool about that.

 

After that we went looking for lunch and ended up at this sit-down restaurant, where we ordered shawarma. It came with about seven or eight little plates of different toppings, which was a totally new thing for me. But I tried it with this artichoke dip (in addition to the normal stuff) that actually was really delicious.

 

Then we FINALLY got around to our shopping. We went to visit Shabban, who is the main vendor connected to the BYU Jerusalem Center. His son Omar has just opened a business across the way (where Shabban’s brother used to be) selling handmade mosaics, which he’s very proud of. They started making these mosaics during COVID, and their products are unique in the Old City and have been selling really well. We also saw a group of students who were there making their own mosaics, which were looking really cool. I kind of wished we had time to do that as well, but we just got a bunch of stuff from Shabban, then went back to the hotel, as we were quite laden down by this point.

 

Tonight we went back to the Center for their Sunday night concert. This is a free concert series they put on each week with local artists as a service to the community. We tried to use our light rail/bus passes to take a bus up the Center, but we ended up failing at that and having to take a taxi (the bus system is much more complicated, and possibly less reliable, than light rail). Tonight’s concert was a string quintet. They were fun to watch, and the music was excellent.