Living, volunteering and working as I did in Palestine for 18 months over the course of 2 years, I went to Jerusalem many different times. Only once or twice, however, did I really do the old religious tourism thing around the Old City. During a break from volunteer olive picking up in Nablus, an Aussie mate Sarah (another ISM volunteer) offered to show me around some of the religious sites in the old city. So we set off from the brilliant Faisal Hostel where we were staying and ventured into the Old City.

Rather than seeing touring the many different religious sites inside the Old City (which we had both done before) we headed to the Mount of Olives on the other side. According to the New Testament, the Mount of Olives is a place that Jesus used as a retreat from Jerusalem. Located there is a large but ill-maintained Jewish graveyard. I'm not really sure when it dates from but Wikipedia (which I tend not to trust) says "from Biblical times" which is a bit vague. In any case, it is massive and clearly pretty old. They don't seem to take very good care of it though, because its stones are all over the place and annoying tourists (such as us) are allowed to crawl all over it.

The area is a great place to get a view of the Old City from, and you can get also get a good view of the famous golden Done of the Rock (the place where Muhammad is supposed to have ascended to heaven from). You can also see the Golden Gate -- there is a Jewish tradition that it is the gate through which the Messiah will return. It was sealed off by an Ottoman Sultan in the 16th century, supposedly to stop the Messiah entering the city. That'll do it.

Also nearby are the Garden of Gethsemane. The Garden is supposed to be the one in which Jesus had his "passion" (not the film) before he was crucified. Whether or not it is, again, it is clearly pretty ancient. The trunks of the olive trees in the garden are absolutely massive, much thicker than the ones from which we were picking olives in Nablus villages -- and even some of them were around 100 years old!

There are also about a hundred churches churches on or near the Mount of Olives (or it seems that way). One of them was call the Church of All Nations and had this intriguing sign on its outside wall: No Explanations!

All in all pretty interesting, and a nice little break.

I recommend the Holy Land, but make sure you get to know Palestinians too, and not just Israelis. Try and visit at least Ramallah or Bethlehem. And be ethical in how you spend your cash. Use local Palestinian guides. Contributing to the Israeli economy with your tourism money indirectly allows them to continue their 40-year-long illegal occupation of Palestinian land. You wouldn't have visited South Africa for fun during the apartheid regime would you? And people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu have often said that the Israeli regime in the occupied Palestinian territories is actually worse than South African apartheid.

So make sure to buy Taybeh beer and not Maccabee!