9 Best Sights in Jerusalem, Israel

The Old City, with its landmark domes and towers, is squarely within your lens in this classic, picture-postcard panoramic view. It's best in the early morning, with the sun at your back, or at sunset on days with some clouds, when the golden glow and sunbeams more than compensate for the glare.

The magnificent, gold Dome of the Rock and the black-domed al-Aqsa Mosque to the left of it dominate the skyline; but look behind them for the large gray dome of the Holy Sepulcher and (farther left) the white one of the Jewish Quarter's Hurva Synagogue for a hint of the long-running visibility contest among faiths and nations. To the left of the Old City, the cone-roof Dormition Abbey and its adjacent clock tower crown Mount Zion, today outside the walls but within the city of the Second Temple period.

The Mount of Olives has been bathed in sanctity for millennia. On the slope beneath you, and off to your left, is the vast Jewish cemetery, reputedly the oldest still in use anywhere in the world. For more than 2,000 years, Jews have been buried here to await the coming of the Messiah and the resurrection to follow. The raised structures over the graves are merely tomb markers, not crypts; burial is belowground.

With its sculpted white turrets and gold onion domes, this Russian Orthodox church looks like something out of a fairy tale. It was dedicated in 1888, when the competition among European powers for influence in this part of the world was at its height. Princess Alice (the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh) is buried here, near her aunt, Elizabeth, the Russian grand duchess–turned-nun who was killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The church has limited hours, but its icon-studded interior and tranquil garden are well worth a visit if your plans bring you to the area at the right time.

Designed by Antonio Barluzzi in the 1950s, the tear-shape church—its name means "The Lord Wept"—preserves the New Testament story of Jesus's sorrowful prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem (Luke 19). The remarkable feature of its simple interior is a picture window facing west, the iron cross on the altar silhouetted against a superb view of the Old City. Many archaeological items were unearthed here, including a group of ancient stone ossuaries, or bone boxes, preserved in a grotto on the right as you enter the site. The courtyard is a good place to enjoy the view in peace between waves of pilgrim groups. (Equally worthy of mention are the restrooms, rare in this area.) The church is about one-third of the way down the steep road that descends to Gethsemane from the Mount of Olives observation point.

Beware of pickpockets on the street outside.

After the Last Supper, the New Testament relates, Jesus and his disciples walked to the Mount of Olives, to a place called Gethsemane, where he was betrayed and arrested. Gethsemane derives from the Aramaic or Hebrew word for "oil press," referring to the precious olive that has always flourished here. The enormous, gnarled, and still-productive olive trees on the site may be older than Christianity itself, according to some botanists. 

The Church of All Nations, with its brilliantly colorful, landmark mosaic facade, was completed in 1924 on the scanty remains of its Byzantine predecessor. The prolific architect, Antonio Barluzzi, filled the church's interior domes with mosaic symbols of the Catholic communities that contributed to its construction. The windows are glazed with translucent alabaster in somber browns and purples, creating a mystical feeling in the dim interior. At the altar is the so-called Rock of the Agony, where Jesus is said to have endured his Passion; this is the source of the older name of the church, the Basilica of the Agony.

A popular approach to Gethsemane is walking down the steep road from the top of the Mount of Olives—identified by pilgrims as the Palm Sunday Road—perhaps stopping in on the way at the Dominus Flevit church where, tradition has it, Jesus wept as he foretold the destruction of the city (Luke 19). The entrance to the well-tended garden at the foot of the hill is marked by a small platoon of vendors outside.

A beautifully tended English-style country garden makes this an island of tranquility in bustling East Jerusalem. What Christian pilgrims come for, however, is an empty ancient tomb, and a moving opportunity to ponder the Gospel account of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is a favorite site for the many Protestant visitors who respond less to the ornamentation and ritual of the Holy Sepulcher.

In 1883, British general Charles Gordon spent several months in Jerusalem. From his window looking out over the Old City walls, he was struck by the skull-like features of a cliff face north of the Damascus Gate. He was convinced that this, rather than the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was "the place of the skull" (Mark 15) where Jesus was crucified. An ancient rock-cut tomb had already been uncovered there, and subsequent excavations exposed cisterns and a wine press, features typical of an ancient garden.

According to the New Testament, Jesus was buried in the fresh tomb of the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea, in a garden close to the execution site, and some archaeologists identified the tomb as an upper-class Jewish burial place of the Second Temple period. Recent research, however, indicates that this tomb is apparently from the Old Testament period, making it too old to have been that of Jesus. In general, the gentle guardians of the Garden Tomb do not insist on the identification of the site as that of Calvary and the tomb of Christ, but are keen to provide a contemplative setting for the pilgrim, in a place that just might have been historically significant.

This deep valley separates the Old City and the City of David from the high ridge of the Mount of Olives and the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. In the cliff face below the neighborhood are the symmetrical openings of tombs from both the First Temple (Old Testament) and Second Temple (Hellenistic-Roman) periods. You can view the impressive group of 2,200-year-old funerary monuments from the lookout terrace at the southeast corner of the Old City wall, or wander down into the valley itself and see them close up. The huge, square, stone structure with the conical roof is known as Absalom's Pillar. The one crowned by a pyramidal roof, a solid block of stone cut out of the mountain, is called Zachariah's Tomb. The association with those Old Testament personalities was a medieval mistake, and the structures more probably mark the tombs of wealthy Jerusalemites of the Second Temple period who wished to await the coming of the Messiah and the resurrection to follow in the style to which they were accustomed.

The church built here in the 4th century AD by Constantine the Great became known as the Eleona (olive), and was associated back then with the ascension of Jesus to heaven. By the Middle Ages, tradition had firmly settled on a small grotto—the focal point of the site—as the place where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father [Pater Noster]" (Matthew 6). The land was purchased by the Princesse de la Tour d'Auvergne of France in 1868, and the Carmelite convent stands on the site of the earlier Byzantine and Crusader structures. An ambitious basilica, begun in the 1920s, was designed to follow the lines of the 4th-century church, but was never completed: its aisles, open to the sky, are now lined with pine trees. The real attractions of the site, however, are the many large ceramic plaques adorning the cloister walls and the small church, with the Lord's Prayer in more than 100 different languages. (Look for the high wall, metal door, and French flag on a bend 200 yards before the Mount of Olives Observation Point.)

Built in the 1930s, and now a branch of the Israel Museum, the museum has echoing stone halls and somewhat old-fashioned displays that recall the period of the British Mandate. Among the most important exhibits are stucco and other decorations from the 8th-century AD Hisham's Palace (Umayyad dynasty) just north of Jericho, the doors of the original al-Aqsa Mosque (also 8th century), and gold Canaanite jewelry. Stone bas-reliefs by Eric Gill, representing different ancient cultures, overlook the pool in the inner courtyard. The museum's octagonal white stone tower is an East Jerusalem landmark. Parking is only available on Saturday.

For winter visitors, note that the buildings have no heating.

The Gothic facade of the underground Church of the Assumption, which contains this shrine, clearly dates it to the Crusader era (12th century). Tradition has it that this is where the Virgin Mary was interred and then assumed into heaven, hence the more common name, the Tomb of the Virgin. In an otherwise gloomy church—hung with age-darkened icons and brass lamps—the marble sarcophagus, apparently medieval, remains illuminated. The 1852 Status Quo Agreement in force in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity pertains here, too: the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and even the Muslims control different parts of the property. The Roman Catholic Franciscans were expelled in 1757, a loss of privilege that rankles to this day.