Throughout this trip have not read the guidebooks ahead of time. Someone said to me before going that you are more alert and more observant if you don't take maps, if you aim to get lost. I wonder if this is true in an emotional sense too.
Go back to the courtyard in front of the Holy Sepulchre and climb up to the rooftop monastery of the Ethiopians. This is a very peaceful place. The cupola covers the chapel of Saint Helena below. There is poverty here, somehow - it is clear - compared to the wealth below.
Climb down to vast underground cisterns.
Water was crucial to the project - always. The priest tells me that Saint Helena found this water and therefore built a church.
Contrary to practice up to now - I have downloaded an app - a guide to Old Jerusalem and start to follow a route around the roof, past the monasteries to steps down to the market.hen around the corner to St Alexander's Russian church. I had stumbled upon this yesterday and one of the sisters recognised me. A wide fresh innocent face.
Go back to the courtyard in front of the Holy Sepulchre and climb up to the rooftop monastery of the Ethiopians. This is a very peaceful place. The cupola covers the chapel of Saint Helena below. There is poverty here, somehow - it is clear - compared to the wealth below.
Climb down to vast underground cisterns.
Water was crucial to the project - always. The priest tells me that Saint Helena found this water and therefore built a church.
Contrary to practice up to now - I have downloaded an app - a guide to Old Jerusalem and start to follow a route around the roof, past the monasteries to steps down to the market.hen around the corner to St Alexander's Russian church. I had stumbled upon this yesterday and one of the sisters recognised me. A wide fresh innocent face.
Inside a glimpse of Imperial Russia.
And a jewelled Madonna. Add this to my collection of images of beaded holy figures: the Virgin in the Jesuit church on the Zattere in Venice, and the jewelled bambino in Rome.
