And Katie and I arrived at the hotel in the middle of the night Sunday night, the professor told us that they would be leaving around 9:30 am to start the tours. He reassured us that it would be perfectly okay to skip the morning tours since we were so tired, and we thought about it a bit, but decided we’d rather get up and get moving and not miss anything. Since we didn’t have our luggage, all we could do was get up, take a shower and throw on our now three day old clothes and get moving. We went down and had breakfast with the group and it turned out to be a typical Middle Eastern breakfast – lots of yogurt, hummus, pita bread, cucumber, pickles, olives, tomatoes, several cheeses, cold meats and hard boiled eggs. We were starving and thrilled to eat hummus for breakfast! A first for breakfast, but delicious!
When we got down to breakfast we were told that the rest of the group coming from Houston, who we’re also on the original flight with us, would not get to the hotel until about 11 am that morning. For some reason they did not reroute them through Germany, but booked them on the next day’s flight. So a small group of us, Katie and me and those who came from Dallas, headed to the Herodium. This is one of Herod’s 11 fortresses that he built about 3 miles southeast of Bethlehem where he chose to be buried.
It was quite windy on the top of the Herodium!
We then went in that the rest of the group and our guide to a small little restaurant in Bethlehem for lunch where we had delicious chicken pita sandwiches and guess what – hummus!
After lunch we went back to the hotel and picked up the group that had just gotten in from Houston and that afternoon we went to two of the three “thought to be” Shepherd’s fields near Bethlehem.
The roads descending to the east of Bethlehem lead through the mostly Christian village of Beit Sahour, which includes the Shepherds’ Fields: these are the fields identified since ancient times with the shepherds who saw the Star of Nativity. One is maintained by the Greek Orthodox Church and there is a church with beautiful painted icons all throughout it. Second one is maintained the Catholic Church and they have a small chapel there. The last one is maintained by the YMCA, but we did not visit it. This area is also believed to be where the Ruth and Naomi gleaned in the fields behind the harvesters on their way to Bethlehem from Moab.
After that we hopped back on the bus, jet lagged and exhausted, but anxious to go to the Church of the Nativity at Manger Square. The church is build over the Cave or grotto where it is thought that Jesus was born. In 1852, shared custody of the church was granted to the Roman Catholic, Armenian and Greek Orthodox churches and the Greeks care for the Grotto of the Nativity. The center section is the Greek orthodox sanctuary and to the left is the Roman Catholic church. Because Tuesday was Epiphany and the Greek Orthodox Christmas, it was extremely crowded and full of countless people of all nationalities coming to Bethlehem as a pilgrimage. Right now it’s under renovation, with scaffolding up in a good portion of the Greek Orthodox part of the church but it’s a very beautiful and interesting church and wished we had more time there.
We left here about 4:30 and it was just starting to get dark. The lights in Manger Square had come on along with all the Christmas lights. It seemed so odd to see Santa Clauses, Christmas trees, snowflakes etc. decorating everything in this part of the world almost 2 weeks after “our” Christmas. The Orthodox church celebrates Christmas on “our” Epiphany. It was so festive with people milling around, so when a lot of the group wanted to go back to the hotel, which is just across the street from Manger Square, Katie and I decided to go get something warm to drink and walk up to the old part of the town. Guess what we ran into – a Stars and Bucks coffee shop. Quite funny. The logo looked almost the same as Starbucks. Later we asked why they had not been shut down and the local opinion and answer is that Starbucks would have no luck fighting the Palestinians over this so why try!
Mark and Freda's Wanderings 
We want more! We want more! We want more! Great posts and great pics! Love you all and can’t wait to see the next post.