Sunday, January 29, 2012

Mameluk Buildings in Jerusalem

Saturday's walking tour took us to Mameluk buildings within the Jerusalem walls. What is it like to live in a 700 year old building whose walls are adorned with gorgeous stone carvings and whose ground floor holds old graves?

We had a guide both knowledgeable and articulate. "I'm not a babysitter," she declared when participants fell behind in the straight but narrow alleys of the souk, but she went back to find seven or eight who missed one sharp turn into a quieter alley when a hard rain obscured the view of her multicolored umbrella among all the other umbrellas.

In and out of the oldest souk we went, through a dark, covered passage to a quiet lane where the householder came out to say hello to a very wet group. We ended up at the "Kotel Katan," a short stretch of the same retaining wall that is the "Western Wall." Later I looked on a map. It's not hard to find at all if you walk straight through the souk for the Jaffa gate and then turn left.

Returning on our own and not at all sure at the time of which way to turn) we passed three other groups taking walking tours in the rain. These seemed to be short-term tourists. If they stayed out of the rain, they'd miss their only opportunity for such a tour.

But the citizens of Jerusalem are hardy, and are willing to follow a guide through cold rain to admire old beauties of the city.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

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