A day trip to the Old City

Friday we took a drive to Jerusalem. We got started a bit later than I had planned and realized that by the time we go there, most of the museums would be closing for Shabbat (by noon or 1pm). We decided this would be our first trip just to get a lay of the land and that we can come back another weekend. It was good that we had this mindset because it took us over an hour to find a place to park! We tried a hotel and they were kind enough to tell us there was a mall across the street that was much cheaper. We drove through all 5 levels of the parking structure for about an hour looking for a spot/waiting for someone to leave... Uggh. We finally found a spot and began looking for the exit. We found the main floor rather quickly and started walking towards the Jaffa Gate. Once inside we saw a tourist shop and thought we would get a map of the old city (we just had one from the Rental car place and it wasn't very detailed). As we got closer the tourist shop was completely empty. I don't know if they were just moving in or just moved out... but we ended up with the map we had. We basically wandered around the streets trying to get our bearings and taking in all the sites. The streets were narrow and there were tons of shops on either side, each with a person saying "Come into my shop, see my stuff, you don't have to buy, just come and look". We didn't take the invitation from anybody... we just did "window shopping" as we walked through the streets. At noon the cathedral chimes were ringing. As we were walking we noticed more and more we were going against the grain to where it was near impossible to make any progress as thousands of people were headed the opposite direction not sure where... We walked down the Via dolorosa (the street where Jesus carried his cross). There are 12stations that mark significants spots along this street. It was really hard to visualize what things may have looked like 2000 years ago with all the shops and the crowds. We did stop at the church of the Holy Sepulcure. As far as I can tell, the church is supposed to mark the spot where Jesus was crucified. I only heard Italian guides and Chinese guides so we didn't get the full scoop. There were a lot of ornaments hanging from the ceiling and murals on the wall. I will try and post a few pictures. We spent the rest of our time looking for the wailing wall (which shouldn't be to hard to find right?) By the time we had left the Church of the Holy Sepulcure it seemed like a ghost town in the streets. Apparently everyone who was going somewhere made it through the city to where they needed to be and most of the shops had closed up (with all the merchandise gone, you can actually read the street signs now :-). We found a few tourists groups, but for the most part the streets were much quieter. After circling the city for an hour we did finally find the wailing wall. What an interesting place to be. It was divided into two sections men/women. There were lots of people standing very close to the wall with their heads buried in their Bibles. Many people were writing notes of prayer and sticking them in the cracks in the wall. Quite an experience.
After finding the wall, the heat was getting to us so we decided to call it a day and try to find where we parked. On our way out of town we found a nice park and stopped to eat our picnic lunch. I didn't put any mayo on the sandwiches this time so they were dry but edible. It was a long drive home and we slept hard that night.