I would walk 500 miles

Monday was all about walking. In the early afternoon jessica and I went to Ben Yehuda street for lunch and spent a couple hours walking all throughout the City Center area. There is always something happening in the City Center, especially on Ben Yehuda. Street performers, musicans, singers, portrait artists, acrobats and the like are always trying to attract a crowd. Many of them are quite talented (some are not at all). At least one ultra religious person will usually be there trying to get all of the men to lay tefillen. Beggars go around asking for money from anyone who stops long enough.

It is a great place to get lunch, find a place to sit, then people watch while taking in the ambiance of everything that is going on around you.

After my late afternoon class we walked to the City of David just outside the Old City at the Dung Gate. This is the location where, 3,000 years ago, King David built the city of Jerusalem establishing it as the unified capital for the tribes of Israel. The City of David is mostly underground through the ruins of Jerusalem in the time before David's son King Solomon built the first Temple.

A view of the city from the lookout point at the City of David

our decent begins

It took FOREVER to walk out at the end of the City of David tour, always going up, up, up. Check Jessica's shutterfly account for the entire odyssey.

After the City of David, we spent the rest of the evening walking around the Old City, then finally walking home. Aside form the tour groups, it always amazes me how quiet the streets of the Jewish Quarter are in the evening. it's so relaxing to walk around and take in the city while almost nothing is going on around you.