Religious pilgrims have journeyed through the Holy Land since the beginning of history.
It is a place of hope and faith for the world’s three monotheistic religions, and to this day believers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam ascend its rocky, terraced hillsides to see the sites of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Koran.
From the earliest days, Jews went to Jerusalem to stand before God. By the year 300 BC, huge crowds from all over the Mediterranean and the Near East would gather for the feasts of Judaism.
Jesus himself was a pilgrim in some ways. He traveled from the Galilee to Jerusalem during the feast of Passover. At the time Jesus would have been in Jerusalem, historians estimate that pilgrimages for feast days tripled the population of the city from 40,000 to 120,000 as believers of the Jewish faith flocked to the Temple Mount to pray and make sacrificial offerings to God. This is why tradition holds Jesus stayed over the Mount of Olives in Bethany, before he was arrested and crucified.
The first known Christian pilgrim to arrive just after Constantine recognized Christianity within the Roman Empire in the early 4th Century was known as the Anonymous Pilgrim from Bordeaux, who arrived in A.D. 333. He left the first known pilgrimage diary but his name was lost to history.
There were other legendary pilgrims in the Byzantine era, such as the monk John Moschos who set off on a journey from the shores of the Bosphorus through the Judean wilderness and the sand dunes of Egypt in A.D. 587.
In the Golden Age of Islam in the 10th Century, Muslims would gather here to see the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site in Islam, where it is believed the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales speak of how the Christian ideal was life led as a pilgrimage, the “glorious pilgrimage to the celestial Jerusalem,” as he put it.
Not everyone has found pilgrimage to the Holy Land celestial. Mark Twain certainly didn’t when he traveled here in 1867 and mocked what he saw as filth and false piety.
“Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic assail you on every hand. . . . Jerusalem is mournful, dreary, lifeless. I would not desire to live here,” he wrote in “The Innocents Abroad.”
But whether you’re a curious cynic or a faithful pilgrim, if you are looking into booking flights and find yourself reading travel guides about Israel, you should know you are part of a continuum of history.
This year is expected to bring numbers of pilgrims that even the Holy Land has never seen before. As Christianity celebrates the 2,000th anniversary of the faith, more than 3 million tourists are expected to come to the Holy Land over the next year.
If the projections prove true, it would be a 50 percent increase over the highest year of tourism ever in Israel, which was at the height of good feeling about the Middle East peace process in 1994.
Tourism officials here had been expecting big numbers for New Year’s 2000 but they didn’t pan out. Tourism officials say that hotel occupancy was at about 60 percent over Christmas and New Year’s Day. It seems the hype and hysteria of millennial fears of violence or chaos left travelers shying from the Holy Land. But if Israel’s Tourism Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak is correct, the flood of tourists will begin in spring and continue steadily until the end of the year.
So you will need to plan ahead. And you should be realistic. Because the Holy Land exists in many minds as an idealized image of beauty and peace, traveling here can be disappointing. It can be crowded and litter-strewn, and the injustices of a place where you see the Israeli-Arab conflict with your own eyes can be jarring. It is not dangerous, certainly not any more than, say, Chicago.
There are plenty of package tours available, but you may find it more rewarding to do some research and set up your own journey.
This article is intended to give you one planned journey through the Holy Land that would trace the footsteps of Jesus. There are some suggestions that include expensive hotels, but also offer a few budget alternatives as well. Because this year marks the 2,000th anniversary of the Christian faith, this is for Christian travelers or anyone else interested in exploring the life of Jesus and where he lived.
But it does not explore the beautiful Muslim shrine of the Dome of the Rock or the massive Herodian stones of the Western Wall, the most sacred site of Judaism.
Planning
The Holy Land will be crowded this year, and booking flights and hotels well in advance is advisable. Keep in mind that the pope is expected to visit during the Feast of the Annunciation on March 26, and in and around that time hotels likely will be packed with Catholic pilgrims from all over the world.
Having a tour guide who knows Christian sites well or attending a Bible study during your stay can make a world of difference in your experience. The Bible College in Bethlehem is a good resource for finding out about both. The Christian Information Center, located inside Jaffa Gate in the Old City, is also a good place to start.
Getting situated
After surviving the exasperating security delays at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport, head to Jerusalem and set up base. There are scores of hotels — from low budget to fantastically expensive — from which to choose. If you can afford it, one of the greatest hotels of the Middle East is the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem.
The American Colony is legendary for its hospitality and warmth, and a favorite of foreign correspondents and diplomats. The courtyard with its Arab architecture and serene setting is paradise amid the often tiring buzz of Jerusalem. Relax to the sounds of the fountains and birds chirping in the beautiful gardens as you sip strong Turkish coffee or mint tea, or an excellent Palestinian-brewed beer called Taybeh and get steeped in the history of Jerusalem and how this hotel figures into it. With rooms at $250 a night, you may need to just enjoy a Taybeh in the American Colony’s courtyard and perhaps have dinner there, and then look for a more affordable accommodation. One very interesting and reasonably priced option can be found in the variety of hospices and hostels run by various Christian denominations in Jerusalem. The hospices are from the days when pilgrims would need to convalesce from their long journeys, and they were a kind of mix of hospitals and hotels. My favorite is the Austrian Hospice, where a double room costs about $40 a night and is run by the Austrian Catholics. It is inside the Old City. The first part of the hotel you see is a battered, wooden door along the Via Dolorosa, the path that tradition holds Jesus carried the cross.
But once inside the grounds, you are embraced by the quiet garden entrance, the elegant architecture of the hallways, the Viennese coffee shop, and the small but beautiful Catholic chapel. The rooms are spartan with only single beds, but they are meticulously clean. The view from the rooftop is among the best in the city, and at sunset the sites and sounds of the three faiths mingle before you on the cobblestone pathways. The Muslim call to prayer flows into the church bells as groups of Orthodox Jews rush to sunset prayers at the Western Wall.
Bethlehem
Bethlehem can be navigated easily from a hotel in Jerusalem since it is only a 15-minute drive away. To get there you will be leaving Jerusalem and heading into the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town where tradition holds that Jesus was born in a stone grotto, now enshrined by the 4th Century Church of the Nativity in Manger Square.
You will journey through an Israeli checkpoint as you leave Jerusalem and get a feel for the conflict that still simmers here as the Israelis and Palestinians continue to negotiate the arduous peace process.
The Palestinian Authority has made great strides in improving the infrastructure of Bethlehem, and the government has gone out of its way to make tourists feel welcome. There is great hospitality among the people, the restaurant owners and the gift shops. But Bethlehem still has the feel of a construction site. It is dusty and crowded and chaotic but absolutely worth seeing.
Nazareth
After Jesus’ birth, the Holy Family returned to Nazareth near the Sea of Galilee and this is where Jesus came of age. In the time of Jesus, Nazareth was a small, poor backwater town. Today it is a crowded, poor city of narrow cobblestone streets, with the clatter of traffic and buses.
Visit the Basilica of the Annunciation, built on the site believed to be where Mary lived and where the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a son and his name would be Jesus.
The Galilee
The gentle hills looking out over the Sea of Galilee are inspiring. Stand on the Mount of Beatitudes where it is believed Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount. Very near here is a great horse ranch where you can stay in private cottages that look out over the Sea of Galilee. Vered HaGalil (Rose of the Galilee) is a great place to stay.
From here, it is a short drive to the ancient village of Capernaum, where Jesus lived and began his ministry among his disciples. Here you can look through the shadow of palm trees onto the serene waters of the Galilee and imagine what life was like in this small fishing village in the time of Jesus. These spots in the Galilee often seem to capture the spirituality of the land of Jesus more than the crowded, tourist sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Jordan River
If you are adventurous enough, journey across the storied Allenby Bridge to Jordan. You need to arrange a bridge pass to travel this route over the Allenby, or take the northern bridge where a bridge pass and visa can be purchased on site. Heading to Jordan brings you along the path where Jesus met John the Baptist and was baptized in “Bethany beyond the Jordan,” as it is referred to in the New Testament.
There is a battle for tourism dollars going on between Israel and Jordan these days over which side of the Jordan River Jesus was really baptized in. Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 and its tourism officials say the Christian shrines along the western banks mark the spot where Jesus was baptized. Jordan is on the East Bank and has in recent years broken ground on an archeological excavation that biblical scholars say may very well be the original “Bethany beyond the Jordan” of John the Baptist’s ministry. Biblical scholars lean toward Jordan’s claim that John the Baptist’s ministry would have been based on the East Bank, but make the more spiritual observation that the actual baptism took place in the water, not on either bank.
To capitalize on Jordan’s archeological find, the MovenPick hotel chain has built a massive and beautiful Dead Sea Spa very close to the baptism site. It rises like a storybook castle out of the arid, fly-infested, desert wilderness. Perhaps because it is so new, the service can be spotty, but the grounds are spectacular. Relax in the saunas and hot baths before having a massage or a facial treatment. The pool has a real sand beach and a biblical view out over the Jordan River Valley to the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth. But from the spa you can walk into the salty, mineral-rich waters of the Dead Sea and be wrapped in its healing mud.
Jerusalem
It is a half-day journey back to Jerusalem if you factor in the sometimes long security delays at the Jordan-Israel border.
The best way to get an overview of Jerusalem’s Old City is to take the Rampart’s Walk around the top of the Ottoman-era walls that surround it. It allows you to make some sense of the layout of the Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish quarters, and the views provide a fascinating glimpse into the daily lives of the people who live in the Old City and move to the ancient rhythm’s of their respective faiths.
Jerusalem is where Jesus’ life ended when he was crucified by the Romans on Golgotha, which is today the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Because of the famous infighting of the Christian denominations that share ownership of the site, the keys to the huge bronze locks in the massive doors of the church rest in the hands of a local Muslim family, and seeing family members open the doors in the predawn darkness is one of the more obscure but interesting interfaith experiences of Jerusalem.
The church is the most sacred and somber shrine in Christendom, but it is also dark, cramped and noisy, and a visit on a busy day can lack the spirituality that it should hold. But outside the walls of the Old City on the base of the Mount of Olives is the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed in the hours before his arrest. Here, in the groves of gnarled olive trees whose roots date to the time of Jesus, there is a unique calm and quietude for believers to reflect on the life and death and rebirth of Jesus.
But whenever I get too cynical about the more crowded Christian shrines and their distinct lack of spirituality, I think of this reminder from Father Murphy-O’Connor, the biblical scholar, who has lived in Jerusalem for 30 years: “There are plenty of places that are tawdry, and that can make you feel like you paid a lot of money for this holy experience and you don’t want it cheapened.
“But go to these sites if they are on pilgrimage routes, and remember many people better than you have been to them. Remember that pilgrimage was very difficult. As recently as the end of the 19th Century, the odds were two-to-one that you would not make it home….So don’t be so cynical about it, and remember that what is important is the story that these sites tell of the life of Jesus.”
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For more information about Israel, contact the Israel Ministry of Tourism Office, 888-77-Israel. Web site is www.israel.com.
