As this was our silver wedding anniversary Anne and I went out to Israel a week early. We stayed in the St Andrews Guest House, which is just outside the Old City.

Click here for the photos.

Most of our time was spent in Jerusalem where we visited several sites, including the holocaust memorial museum.
We experienced the varied cultures: from shopping in the Souk to coffee in the King David Hotel, as well as the underlying tensions that are ever present in Israel.
On one occasion, just outside the Old City, some Orthodox Jews drew up in a car on some waste ground where there were a few Palestinian children and men. As the Jews started to get out of the car the Palestinians bent down to pick up stones. We did not hang about!

Whilst there we met a Scot who is working in West Bank special needs schools (Anne also works in special needs schools). He took us to a Christian school for special needs children in Bethlehem, called the House of Hope. As is typical of many schools there they have very little resources but we did receive a very warm welcome from staff and children. If you have any unwanted educational toys or equipment then please let us know.

In addition to this he took us to the Dead Sea for a “swim”. We opted out of the traditional smearing of oneself in the black mud. The salt was bad enough!

After Anne flew back home, I travelled up to the Galilee with some of my fellow cyclists. We were able to visit Bar’am with a gentleman who had lived there as a child before the Israeli army blew up the village in 1948. Later we visited an olive press in full flow, as it was the harvest time. Huge stone wheels whizzed round and round for the first pressing and the remains were further squeezed in giant presses.

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