Day 16 – Bethlehem

Ashdod, Bethlehem

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Our tour today was to historic Bethlehem with guide Lydia who was the best we have had so far. She was so good we thought she must have a teaching background but in fact she is an antique dealer and tour guide. She was certainly very good at her job, attentive and personable.

We drove to Bethlehem by a back road and so avoided the traffic jams to Jerusalem. We had to go through border security as Bethlehem is in Palestine. We also had to pick up our Palestinian guide George.

We first went to the Shepherds’ field where the Angel Gabriel told the shepherds about the birth of Jesus. Here was a cave where the shepherds would have lived. 

It was interesting because we picture stables as wooden but it’s very likely that these were in caves, particularly once you see how hilly Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth are. We learnt about the ways people would have built their houses into the mountainside; and about the significance of the hole in the ceiling of the cave – often caves were used as cisterns for collecting water and the hole would have been where they pulled the buckets of water through to the upper house.

On the same site were the archeological remains of a Byzantine monastery and church and the Church of Shepherds Field which was designed by the same architect as that of the Church of the Annunciation in Jerusalem.

Then back onto the bus for the main part of the tour to the Church of the Nativity which is on the site where Jesus was born. It was really three churches on the one site – the Greek Orthodox Church which contained the birthplace of Jesus (we queued and processed very slowly through the church and down stairs 

into a cave where Jesus’ birthplace was commemorated by a star), 

then through to the Armenian church and finally through a colonnade to St Catherine’s Catholic Church.

A shopping stop at St Michael’s, Christian owned store, followed by a simple buffet lunch at the Four Star Restaurant finished with Arabic baclava and coffee.

Our final stop was a panoramic view of Jerusalem.

A great day!

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