Day 11

First thing in the morning we made the short journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Bethlehem is now on the other side of the wall, which separates Jerusalem from the West Bank. A lot of people who relied on the free flow of trade with Jerusalem are now struggling to survive. We visited the Church of the Nativity, the oldest surviving church in the Middle East, and which is if not the exact location of Jesus’ birth, very close. Inside the church we visited the grotto, which would have been very like where the animals would have been kept in those days. This was another special and moving experience. Getting back into Israel was a more lengthy process than getting into the West Bank, as every car is searched. Soldiers armed with machine guns boarded our bus and checked all our passports. Slightly disconcerting! As Charlie said, ‘I’ve never been so close to a machine gun in my life’.