Jerusalem Old City Free Walking Tour

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Jerusalem Old City Free Walking Tour

Sunday 17 February 2019

It was Susan’s idea, the free walking tour, she had done them in the past and said that they were a great way to become orientated when you arrive in a new city. To be honest, I was a little sceptical. I didn’t like the idea of being herded around like sheep and being given the hard sell at every turn, but Susan convinced me, telling me that the tour would be free and that we would only have to tip the guide what we thought the tour was worth. If we hated it, we could bail and head off on our own.

Susan booked the tour with a company called Sandemans, and all we had to do was print off a copy of the booking and meet the guide at the designated meeting point at the right time on the right date.

For us, the meeting point was the Jaffa Gate, one of eight gates in Jerusalem’s Old City walls.

We left our hotel and made our way down Jaffa Street to Tzahal Square, where we had the first views of the magnificent Old City walls. I couldn’t help but think that people had stood here and gazed upon these walls for thousands of years. Walls that protect once of the most historically important, and fought over, places in human history. A history that, until now, I had only read about. I had no idea how wrong I was!

At the allotted time we reached the Jaffa Gate and quickly found the Sandemans guides standing under their trademark red umbrellas. There were quite a few of them, and they were going around sticking coloured dots on the growing number of people surrounding them.

For a quarter of an hour or more, the crowd kept growing, more and more people scrabbling to reach the guides and get the coloured dots stuck on their jackets. I grew impatient and a little bored. I got that ‘sheep’ feeling and was all for leaving when a man with an American accent shepherded the blue dots over to one side.

Our Shepard wore a leather jacket, a fedora and had a satchel hanging at his hip and was obviously working the Indiana Jones vibe. His name was Shimon and, as it turns out, he was an excellent guide!

Shimon led us through the Jaffa Gate and gathered us beneath the Tower of David. There he took a scroll from his satchel which contained an easy to digest timeline of key events and in just under ten minutes flat, he took us through the abridged history of Jerusalem.

The Walls I had admired less than an hour ago, believing that they had seen the reign of King David and King Solomon, the rule of Alexander the Great, Pompey, Herod and Pontius Pilate and not to mention all of the biblical events associated with this ancient city, had only been built in the sixteenth century on the orders of Sultan Suleiman I, ruler of the Ottoman Empire.

The walls dating back to the times of King David and Soloman were destroyed, along with the city of Jerusalem, in 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and have been rebuilt and destroyed many times over since then.

In fact, for nearly three centuries during the middle ages, Jerusalem had no walls at all and lay completely unprotected when the nephew of Saladin had them torn down fearing that the Crusaders would benefit if they managed to reconquer the city.

For almost two hours, Shimon expertly led our group around the narrow streets of Jerusalem, taking in all four of the Old City’s quarters. He showed us views of every historic site, even if some of them were a little far away, and talked us through every key historical and religious event. Regardless as to which religion, Shimon provided all of the necessary facts, dates, legends and stories in a clear and unbiased manner.

I found that Shimon was both entertaining and engaging and well worth the ‘suggested’ tip at the end of the tour.

If you have never done a free walking tour before and are considering joining one, then it is worth doing some research on TripAdvisor first to see what other people enjoyed and recommend.

I certainly recommend the tour of the Old City with Shimon.

Lots of people waiting for the free walking tour

Now, who is in charge here? The meeting point for the tour.

Shimon, our guide, just needs the whip to complete the look!

Evidence of older city walls at Jerusalem

Our first glimpse of the Western Wall and Temple Mount

David Welch – View Profile

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