At 9.25am we ordered some breakfast on the plaza, which I saw this time is named Ben Yehuda Street. The meal was bagels. One was salmon with cream cheese on a sesame seed bagel. The other was egg salad with cucumber on a whole grain bagel. I had a cappuccino with mine and we also bought a bottle of water. The tab came to 82ILS and we ate at a table outside. A light-brown sparrow got up on the back of the free chair at our table. After eating we headed up the mall to King George Street and hailed a cab. One was waiting at the kerb and we got in.
The driver turned to me and said something in Hebrew in an aggressive voice even though I had spoken to him in English. I had no idea what he said and repeated the name of the target destination, the Israel Museum. He repeated what he had initially said in the same loud voice and I said, “Ok.” This turned out to have been a mistake.
I saw no meter in the front of the Skoda we were now inside and at 10.05am when we arrived at the museum I asked the driver with English and with hand gestures how much the fare was. He said the same words he had initially used and I said I didn’t understand. He got out his phone and typed some figures and I read what he had typed. He wanted 50ILS for the trip, although a ride to another museum located about the same distance from our hotel that we had taken the day before had come to 25ILS.
I paid and we got out of the cab and we went inside the museum and paid the entry fee of 54ILS each. To get the audio player with information about exhibits you have to leave some ID, so I gave the woman behind the counter my driver’s license before we went through the gates into the display areas.
The place is very odd in its design. You see a few of the same kind of Neolithic terracotta burial capsules we had seen in Jordan in the hills above Amman at the museum next to the Temple of Hercules. But then there is a whole lot of religious paraphernalia followed by some 18th century rooms with furniture in them that had been donated by prominent Jews, notably one that had belonged to the Rothschilds. The displays then include paintings from the 18th can 19th centuries. So a lot of the stuff they have open for visitors are European objects rather than the type of archaeological stuff that they did so well in the Museum of Jordan in Amman.
I got a Coke to drink and we sat down for a while to discuss the cab driver, and then we left the building and got into another taxi. This driver spoke English and used a meter – we confirmed both of these things before getting in his Renault – and we arrived back at King George Street at 11.35am. The fare this time was a more reasonable 25ILS.
We got out of the car and crossed the road and bought an orange juice for 14ILS and then went into a bakery to have some food, which came to 59ILS. The food was a kind of canned tuna and vege concoction (zucchini, eggplant, potato) on a baked base, and a tiramisu. We also bought a bottle of Sprite. An orthodox Jew wearing a fedora and a black suit asked me the time in English and I answered but he didn’t understand what I said in reply so I showed him the face of the watch on my wrist. After leaving the shop we headed back toward the hotel and on the way I bought two 500ml Maccabees and a bottle of water (24ILS). We got back to our rooms at 12.40pm.
At 2.45pm I went out to get some more cash at the ATM near the YMCA because I trusted it to give me back my credit card. It was very hot but the fast-food outlets on Jaffa Street were still doing a brisk trade at 3pm. I got back to the hotel with the extra cash and my credit card in my wallet about 40 minutes later. And I had to reset the network settings on my iPhone again. It seems that the personal hotspot will only work if you do this each time you want to use the phone to connect to the internet.
At 4pm we headed out to find some food as lunch had been skipped. We walked around the downtown area for a while and then headed across to Mamilla Avenue. We went into another Cafe Rimon, where we ordered some fried sea bass with greens, an Asian salad that came with bok choy, zucchini, green beans, and noodles, and a pasta that was shaped like little combs that came with pesto. I had a Regina beer and my friend had a kind of smoothie made with strawberries and dates. The tab came to 270ILS and I gave a tip of 20ILS. We took some of the salad home with us as, as is usual here, the meal was too big.
We headed east toward the old town and walked south along a road where cars can drive, then ducked into a narrow laneway and made our way east until at 6.45pm we came again to the entrance to the Western Wall. We entered from the south this time but as before we went through a scanner and then bought tickets for Friday morning for the tunnels tour they hold several times daily. We took a seat and rested for a while then exited the walls of the town and walked west on a road that is elevated above a valley. In the distance you can see from here the houses of east Jerusalem. We asked directions of a young couple who were dressed in the customary way for orthodox Jews but the man knew no English and his wife’s English was not very good either. Their children were very amused by the encounter on the other hand.
We headed up to Zion Gate and then walked north on Habad Street until we got to David Street, where we turned west until at 7.40 we got to the Jaffa Gate again. Then we walked across town to the hotel. As we were heading northwest on Jaffa Street the orthodox Jew in the fedora who had his table set up to offer filins to passersby was packing up his stuff and carrying it to a laneway.
The driver turned to me and said something in Hebrew in an aggressive voice even though I had spoken to him in English. I had no idea what he said and repeated the name of the target destination, the Israel Museum. He repeated what he had initially said in the same loud voice and I said, “Ok.” This turned out to have been a mistake.
I saw no meter in the front of the Skoda we were now inside and at 10.05am when we arrived at the museum I asked the driver with English and with hand gestures how much the fare was. He said the same words he had initially used and I said I didn’t understand. He got out his phone and typed some figures and I read what he had typed. He wanted 50ILS for the trip, although a ride to another museum located about the same distance from our hotel that we had taken the day before had come to 25ILS.
I paid and we got out of the cab and we went inside the museum and paid the entry fee of 54ILS each. To get the audio player with information about exhibits you have to leave some ID, so I gave the woman behind the counter my driver’s license before we went through the gates into the display areas.
The place is very odd in its design. You see a few of the same kind of Neolithic terracotta burial capsules we had seen in Jordan in the hills above Amman at the museum next to the Temple of Hercules. But then there is a whole lot of religious paraphernalia followed by some 18th century rooms with furniture in them that had been donated by prominent Jews, notably one that had belonged to the Rothschilds. The displays then include paintings from the 18th can 19th centuries. So a lot of the stuff they have open for visitors are European objects rather than the type of archaeological stuff that they did so well in the Museum of Jordan in Amman.
I got a Coke to drink and we sat down for a while to discuss the cab driver, and then we left the building and got into another taxi. This driver spoke English and used a meter – we confirmed both of these things before getting in his Renault – and we arrived back at King George Street at 11.35am. The fare this time was a more reasonable 25ILS.
We got out of the car and crossed the road and bought an orange juice for 14ILS and then went into a bakery to have some food, which came to 59ILS. The food was a kind of canned tuna and vege concoction (zucchini, eggplant, potato) on a baked base, and a tiramisu. We also bought a bottle of Sprite. An orthodox Jew wearing a fedora and a black suit asked me the time in English and I answered but he didn’t understand what I said in reply so I showed him the face of the watch on my wrist. After leaving the shop we headed back toward the hotel and on the way I bought two 500ml Maccabees and a bottle of water (24ILS). We got back to our rooms at 12.40pm.
At 2.45pm I went out to get some more cash at the ATM near the YMCA because I trusted it to give me back my credit card. It was very hot but the fast-food outlets on Jaffa Street were still doing a brisk trade at 3pm. I got back to the hotel with the extra cash and my credit card in my wallet about 40 minutes later. And I had to reset the network settings on my iPhone again. It seems that the personal hotspot will only work if you do this each time you want to use the phone to connect to the internet.
At 4pm we headed out to find some food as lunch had been skipped. We walked around the downtown area for a while and then headed across to Mamilla Avenue. We went into another Cafe Rimon, where we ordered some fried sea bass with greens, an Asian salad that came with bok choy, zucchini, green beans, and noodles, and a pasta that was shaped like little combs that came with pesto. I had a Regina beer and my friend had a kind of smoothie made with strawberries and dates. The tab came to 270ILS and I gave a tip of 20ILS. We took some of the salad home with us as, as is usual here, the meal was too big.
We headed east toward the old town and walked south along a road where cars can drive, then ducked into a narrow laneway and made our way east until at 6.45pm we came again to the entrance to the Western Wall. We entered from the south this time but as before we went through a scanner and then bought tickets for Friday morning for the tunnels tour they hold several times daily. We took a seat and rested for a while then exited the walls of the town and walked west on a road that is elevated above a valley. In the distance you can see from here the houses of east Jerusalem. We asked directions of a young couple who were dressed in the customary way for orthodox Jews but the man knew no English and his wife’s English was not very good either. Their children were very amused by the encounter on the other hand.
We headed up to Zion Gate and then walked north on Habad Street until we got to David Street, where we turned west until at 7.40 we got to the Jaffa Gate again. Then we walked across town to the hotel. As we were heading northwest on Jaffa Street the orthodox Jew in the fedora who had his table set up to offer filins to passersby was packing up his stuff and carrying it to a laneway.
Above: Ben Yehuda Street, heading east.
Above: Jaffa Street heading southeast.
Above: Queen Shlomziyon Street heading south.
Above: The traffic lights at the corner of King David Street and Gershon Agron Street. They have street signs in three languages (Hebrew, Arabic, and English) in Jerusalem. There are separate signals for cars turning left here (red light at left-hand side of frame) and for cars going straight (red light at centre of frame).
Above: A group of Colombians at the Western Wall.
Above: At the southern end of the old town, looking east to east Jerusalem.
Above: Zion Gate in the wall of the old town.
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