Jerusalem

Some cities you visit; Jerusalem you enter. For three thousand years it has drawn pilgrims, conquerors and the merely curious, and it holds the heart of three faiths at once — Jewish, Christian, Muslim — layered into the same square kilometer of pale limestone. Inside the Old City walls four quarters press against one another, and a lane of spice stalls and bakeries opens without warning onto a place where people have prayed and wept for centuries. At dusk the light does something to that stone no photograph has ever caught. Bells and the call to prayer cross in the same air; then on Friday evening the traffic thins, candles appear in windows, and the whole city goes quiet. Call it a museum if you like, but nothing here is behind glass. It is a city still praying, still arguing, still baking bread — and it repays every hour you give it.

What we will see

• The Western Wall — The holiest site accessible to Jews — a retaining wall of the Second Temple.
• Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Where Jesus was crucified, buried and rose again. Six churches share custody of it.
• Dome of the Rock and Temple Mount — The golden dome above the rock from which, in Islam, Muhammad ascended to heaven.
• Mount of Olives — The best panorama of the Old City. Most tours start here.
• Garden of Gethsemane — Ancient olive trees below the Mount of Olives — where Jesus prayed before his arrest.
• Via Dolorosa — The Way of the Cross through the Old City, fourteen stations from sentence to tomb.
• Mount Zion — The Cenacle, King David's Tomb and the Dormition Abbey on a single hill.
• Israel Museum — The Shrine of the Book with the Dead Sea Scrolls and a model of Second Temple Jerusalem.
• Yad Vashem — The memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. A hard but essential stop.
• Mahane Yehuda Market — Spices, sweets and street food. On Friday afternoon you see the run-up to Shabbat.