- Duration: 8 hours
- Private guide in Castilian
- Pickup and drop off at your hotel
- Cost per person from Jerusalem
- Minimum cost for 3 persons - 360 Euros ()Lunch not included
- 4-9 people - 120 Euros person
- 10 persons and more - request a quote by mail
This full day tour allows a comprehensive view of Jerusalem - their history, their religions, their importance in the conflict and current political and physical situation. In the morning they will travel to be away from the sacred places of the ancient city and in the evening the separation wall, settlements and refugee camps will be explored. Jerusalem is the center of Israel and Palestine and a microcosm of the social and political reality of the area. The conference provides a fascinating and surprising experience along with a comprehensive introduction to the reality of Israel-Palestine.
The meeting point for this tour is the Gate Café at the Damascus Gate. The guide will be waiting there to offer visitors a first introduction to the Old City of Jerusalem. A religious and historical, but also political, with the Israeli occupation and settlements as background review.
The importance of the Old City to the three monotheistic religions will be evident during the tour, as will the presence of the Israeli occupation in the walled city. The visit to the Jewish settlements in the Muristan (Christian Quarter) and the Muslim Quarter will analyze their antecedents and consequences. These colonies are acquired by the organization Ateret Cohanim and then populated by young, often national religious radicals, which establish strained neighborly relations with its Palestinian neighbors.
Visitors will learn from within the Old City, walking the streets of the Muslim Quarter and top with a panoramic view from the roof of the Austrian Hospice. They also approach the Square Wailing Wall in the heart of the old city. There you will hear about the importance of this place to the Jews and the adjacent Temple Mount to Islam. They may better understand the intense debate on excavations around Al Aqsa mosque, a source of tension and discontent.
After a tour of the Jewish Quarter, the visitor, visitors can enjoy a typical Palestinian food. Before continuing the visit, receive explanations illustrated with maps on Jerusalem beyond the old city, then take the road by the "seam line", the road that separates the east and west part of the city.
The tour of the Damascus Gate, through the settlement of French Hill before turning onto Route 1 and follow Route 443, where you can see colonies and Palestinian ghetto Bir Naballah, completely surrounded by a wall. The tour comes after the Qalandiya checkpoint, the main military post in the Jerusalem area and the only way allowed by Israel to the entry of Palestinians from the northern West Bank area that have permits.
The wall there reaches 8 meters high to separate the neighborhoods of Kufr Akab and Ar-Ram, both Palestinians and both belonging to Greater Jerusalem. The road now enters the Judean Desert via the highway to Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. Its route passes near Ma'aleh Adumim, which, with its 35,000 inhabitants, is one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank. On the outskirts visitors will see outposts and listening to the guide on the displacement of the Bedouin who live in the area historically.
From a viewpoint of the settlement visitors also have a panoramic view of the area "E1" an area that will be occupied by settlements and hotels, according to the Israeli plans. The return to Jerusalem is on Route 1, a road connecting the settlements to Jerusalem and that is intended to be used exclusively by Israelis when the road is completed only for Arabs. Throughout the tour, visitors will have the tour guide, who will clarify the impact of settlements in Palestinian neighborhoods neighbors and discuss the situation on the ground, away from preconceived ideas.
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