Jews, Christians and Muslims consider the same piece of land sacred, and for it walls have been conquered, destroyed and rebuilt for three thousand years. Twelve stops from the Mount of Olives to the Holocaust memorial, by way of Gethsemane, the Lions' Gate, the Via Dolorosa, the Damascus Gate, the Holy Sepulchre of the immovable ladder, the Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Armenian Quarter and the gate through which a British general walked in on foot. Approximate audio duration: 24 minutes.
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Jerusalén: tres religiones en un kilómetro cuadrado
Judíos, cristianos y musulmanes consideran sagrado el mismo pedazo de tierra, y por él se han conquistado, destruido y reconstruido murallas durante tres mil años. Doce paradas desde el Monte de los Olivos hasta el memorial del Holocausto, pasando por Getsemaní, la Puerta de los Leones, la Vía Dolorosa, la Puerta de Damasco, el Santo Sepulcro de la escalera inmóvil, el Barrio Judío, el Muro Occidental, la Explanada de las Mezquitas, el Barrio Armenio y la puerta por la que entró a pie un general británico. Duración aproximada de audio: 24 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~24 min of audio · 5 km on foot (~1 h 15 min walking) · about 1 h 45 min in total
You are at the Mount of Olives lookout. Look ahead: the whole Old City of Jerusalem, surrounded by walls, and in the center the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock. Below you, the slope is covered with pale stone tombs.
It is the oldest Jewish cemetery in the world still in use. People have been buried here for some three thousand years. There are tens of thousands of graves, and people still pay fortunes for a plot.
The reason lies in a prophecy. According to Jewish tradition, when the Messiah comes, the resurrection of the dead will begin on this mount. Those buried here will be the first …
2
The Olive Trees of the Last Night
You are in the Garden of Gethsemane. Look at the olive trees with their twisted, hollow trunks, and behind them the Church of All Nations, with its columned facade and a large gold mosaic.
Gethsemane means oil press in Aramaic. It was an olive grove at the foot of the mount, outside the city wall.
According to the Gospels, Jesus came here on the last night, after supper with his disciples. He prayed alone, in anguish, while the others slept. And here he was arrested, betrayed by one of his own, Judas, with a kiss.
Look at the oldest olive trees. In 2012 a scientific study analyzed some of t…
3
The Sultan's Lions
You are in front of the Lions' Gate. Look at both sides of the arch: four felines carved in relief, two on each side, facing one another.
The wall around the Old City was built by the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent between 1537 and 1541. It is about four kilometers long, with several gates. Legend says Suleiman dreamed that two lions would devour him if he did not protect the holy city, and he had them carved here.
Go through the gate and, a few steps to the right, you will see the Church of Saint Anne, built by the crusaders in the twelfth century. When Saladin retook Jerusalem in …
4
A Road That Moved
You are on the Via Dolorosa, beneath the stone arch spanning the street, the Ecce Homo arch. Look at the round plaques on the walls with Roman numerals: they mark the stations of the way.
According to Christian tradition, Jesus walked this road carrying the cross, from the place where the Roman governor Pontius Pilate condemned him to the place where he was crucified. There are fourteen stations. The last five are inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Every Friday afternoon the Franciscans walk these streets in procession. Pilgrims from all over the world carry wooden crosses among the st…
5
The Gate of the Column
You are at the Damascus Gate. Look at the great battlemented Ottoman gate, and the amphitheater-shaped steps full of people selling bread, vegetables and coffee. It is the busiest and most lively gate of the Old City.
In Arabic it is called Bab al-Amud, the gate of the column. The name recalls something that is no longer there: a great Roman column that stood in a square behind the gate.
Look below the level of the current gate: there are remains of an older Roman entrance. It is the gate of Aelia Capitolina, the city that Emperor Hadrian built on the ruins of Jerusalem.
The Romans had dest…
6
The Ladder No One Can Move
You are in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Look at the stone facade with its two doors, one walled up. Now raise your eyes to the window at the top right: there is a small wooden ladder leaning on the ledge.
That ladder has been there since at least the eighteenth century. No one can move it. The reason explains the whole church.
For most Christians this is the holiest place in the world: under one roof stand the rock of Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, and the tomb where he was buried. The first church was built on the orders of Emperor Constantine in the fourth century.
It i…
7
The Synagogue Called Ruin
You are in Hurva square, in the Jewish Quarter. Look at the synagogue with its great white dome on arches, and around it the pale stone houses, almost all of them new.
That synagogue is called Hurva, which means ruin in Hebrew. Its story is the story of the quarter.
At the start of the eighteenth century a group of Jews who had come from Europe began building it. They borrowed from Arab moneylenders, could not repay, and in 1721 the creditors set it on fire. It lay in ruins for more than a century and the name stuck.
It was rebuilt in 1864 and for decades was the most important synagogue in…
8
The Wall Left Standing
You are on the plaza of the Western Wall. Look at the wall of huge stone blocks, gigantic at the bottom and smaller higher up; the plants growing from the cracks; and the people praying before it, men on the left, women on the right.
It is not a wall of the Temple. It is the retaining wall of the great platform that King Herod enlarged two thousand years ago to support the Temple of Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religious life.
In the year 70 the Romans destroyed the Temple. This stretch of wall was left standing. For almost two thousand years, Jews came here to pray and mourn its destruct…
9
Everyone's Rock
You are on the great esplanade that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. Look at the octagonal building with its golden dome and walls of blue tiles: the Dome of the Rock. To the south, the Al-Aqsa mosque, with its grey dome.
The Dome of the Rock was completed around the year 691. It is one of the oldest surviving Islamic buildings. Inside there is a bare rock.
For Jews, on that rock or very close to it stood the holiest place of the Temple, the Holy of Holies. Tradition also links it to the place where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son.
For Musl…
10
The Quarter of the Survivors
You are in the Armenian Quarter, in front of the gate of the Convent of Saint James. Look at the high walls, the closed doors, the quiet streets. It is the smallest and most silent quarter of the Old City, almost a city within the city.
There have been Armenians in Jerusalem since the fourth century. Armenia was the first kingdom in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, around the year 301, and its pilgrims arrived very early.
Behind these doors is the Cathedral of Saint James, dark, lit by hundreds of oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. And around it, the convent, where …
11
The General Who Walked In
You are at the Jaffa Gate. Look beside you at the citadel, with its tall, slender tower, the so-called Tower of David. And notice the wide gap that opens in the wall next to the gate, where the cars go through.
The Tower of David has nothing to do with King David. It is an Ottoman minaret built on the remains of a fortress of King Herod. Christian pilgrims gave it that name by mistake, and it stuck.
The gap in the wall has a curious story. In 1898 the German emperor Wilhelm the Second visited Jerusalem. The Ottoman authorities wanted him to ride in by carriage in full pomp, and for that they…
12
A Name and a Place
You are at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, on the Mount of Remembrance, west of Jerusalem. Look at the long triangular concrete building that cuts through the hill like a wedge and opens at the end onto the landscape.
The name comes from a verse of the prophet Isaiah: I will give them a memorial and a name that shall not be cut off. In Hebrew, yad vashem: a place and a name.
It was created by law in 1953. Its mission is to document the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and to recover the name of every victim.
In the Hall of Names, a huge conical dome is c…
How long does the "Jerusalem: Three Religions in One Square Kilometer" audio tour take?
It has about 24 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 5 km walking route (~1 h 15 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 45 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "Where the End of the World Will Begin" (coordinates 31.7779, 35.243). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Jerusalem and pick "Jerusalem: Three Religions in One Square Kilometer". No account required to start.
Free app
No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian
