The last part of the day, we visited the Wailing Wall, walked along part of the Via Dolorosa and then went into the Church of Holy Sepulchre.  They are renovating the site of Jesus's tomb in the Church and the tour didn't even allow time to go inside before we had to leave.

After Bethlehem, we switched buses again and went back to Jerusalem.  The first stop was at Mount Zion.  The first picture is a room above the place that the Last Supper may have taken place.  The second picture is a room with King David's tomb.

The first stop was at the Mount of Olives overlooking the Old City in Jerusalem.

​Then we drove to Bethlehem, which is in Palestine zone A, so our first tour guide left the bus, we crossed the border, got into another tour bus and met up with a Palestinian guide to show us Bethlehem and the Church of Nativity. The first picture is a sign posted at the checkpoint (we went through a different checkpoint that didn't have as much security).

​The next pictures are the Church of the Nativity from the outside, the site where Jesus was born (underneath the current church), and the house where Mary and Joseph may have stayed adjacent (also underneath the church).  I'll apologize in advance if I get some of the details wrong but was trying to follow the tour guide and didn't write down any notes.

I took three tours while I was in Israel:  Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Biblical highlights of the Galilee, and Massada and the Dead Sea.  I used a company called 'rent-a-guide' which my hotel set up for all of the tours.  I stayed at the Embassy Hotel in Tel Aviv which is across the street from the US Embassy and got a good rate through hotels.com.

​If I had to do it again, I would have stayed an extra day, and would have booked a hotel in Jerusalem for a few of the nights.  The tours left at 7:20 am every morning and we got back into Tel Aviv anywhere between 5:30 and 7:00pm, so there was extra driving involved for two of the three tours.  I also would have hired a different tour company or private guide for Jerusalem.  Combining it with Bethlehem meant that we were rushed through a lot of the tour and we missed some things.  Other than that I'm glad that I went.

I checked out Wednesday and walked down to the square near the acropolis in the afternoon and had another gyro plate before I left.  My flight wasn't until 10:30 or 11:00pm, so I didn't get to my hotel in Tel Aviv until around 2 am Thursday morning.  I had day tours booked yesterday, today and tomorrow and then need to leave for the airport at 2 am Monday morning, so I plan to update pictures from the tours tomorrow after I get back, while I'm waiting in the lounge.

I booked another day tour, which was a cruise to the islands of Hydra, Poros and Aegina.  It was nice, but since it was an organized tour, and a cruise, most of the time was spent on the boat and the time on Hydra and Poros was limited, though there wasn't a whole lot to see anyway.  I took an optional tour on Aegina were we visited the temple of Aphaia and a few other sites. They had a pretty good buffet lunch on board the boat and a greek show.  The first set of pictures is Hydra.

​The next few pictures are from Poros.  We only spent about 30 minutes here.

​The last few pictures are of Aegina. 

I didn't really do too much yesterday, although I did book my hotel for Israel and started looking into tours.  I walked to the square below the parthenon again to have gyros for dinner.   It was the first Sunday that stores were open for Christmas shopping and the weather was good, so it was pretty crowded on the streets.

​Today I'm trying to find a laundromat and book some more things for Israel and Morocco.  Tomorrow I'm taking a day cruise to some of the greek islands.

After lunch we visited a pottery factory and then stopped at Nafplio which is a seaside tourist town and would be great to visit in the summertime.

​The last stop was at Epidaurus to visit the greek theatre, which is still used for performances.

Saturday I took another day tour.  The first stop was at the Corinth Canal, which was completed in 1893.

​The second stop was at the archaeological site in Mycenae.

Temple of Apollo, theatre and stadium.

​Delphi Museum, Socrates, bronze statue, Naxian Sphinx (restored) and original marker for center of the greek world (restored).