Real sights

There's no end of churches in Jerusalem - most of which seem to claim be somewhere significant (down to where Mary's parents used to live...). The apparent competition between denominations gives you the feeling of a land grab. Everyone wants their piece of the Holy Land. You can't help feeling that less would have been more. The most poignant sites for us weren't the various churches but the undeveloped bits which gave you an insight into what things may have looked like. Places like the 2000 year old olive grove at the bottom of the Mount of Olives which may well have been Gethsemane (the Mount of Olives is otherwise fairly devoid of olive trees as it turns out and very full of graves of people lining up to be first to see the Messiah).

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