The northwest burbs

Today we started at the western wall.  We didn't go into the plaza where the wailing wall is, but instead walked the tunnel that the Israelis have built that exposes all of the wall (there is a lot of controversy about it since the Muslims are convinced the Jews are trying to dig under the Temple mount and collapse the Dome of the Rock).

After that, we got on our bus and headed to the northwestern suburbs of Jerusalem to visit the churches of the Visitation and John the Baptist.  I assumed that they would be the same church, but as we see in Luke 1:24, Elizabeth withdrew into seclusion to ponder John's conception (seclusion in this case means up into the hills into a then rural area).  Both are our standard spilt-level Byzantine lower-renovated Crusader into modern upper structure (seriously it's going to be weird to go back home and not have another older church in the basement), but the Church of the visitation had really cool wall paintings and a piazza. John the Baptist also had a cool courtyard, but the upper church was covered in tile, so it was a bit strange (though it had the better lower church).

The piazza at the Church of the Visitation 

Under the oldest altar at St. John's. The Latin translates to here
 the forerunner of the Lord is born.  There is a similar place at Nazerth that
says the word became flesh here

In the afternoon we visited one of the three possible Emmaus sites (there are ruins of towns the correct distance away in three directions).  This one is run by the Benedictines, and they haven't renovated their Crusader church, so although the paintings are falling apart and were defaced by Muslims, it gives you an idea of what the Crusader churches would have looked like.

The main altar

Tomorrow is our second free day, but since it is my turn to preach at evening prayer (this is a preaching practicum course after all), I will probably spurn most fun things and endlessly worry over my homily.