Day 10 Part 3 The Cathedral of St. Anne and Bethesda

We gather in the square in front of St. Anne's Cathedral.  I have no idea who St. Anne is until I read the little sign in front of the church.  Anne was the mother of Mary, the mother of Jesus!  I had no idea anyone knew Mary's mother's name.  It's Anne.  Now you know.  And this is the church named after her.

On the north side of the church square are many ruins and I expect that these will be explained to us.  Many ask about them and Ilan, one of our Jewish guides kind of rolls his eyes and says, "This is the most confusing archaeological site in all of Israel."  "Nobody can make any sense out of it."  I am a little surprised by this and I look with more interest.  With a sweep of his hand Ilan says that so many different eras, styles and ruins are all built on top of each other, different layers of buildings in the "wrong" order, with newer under older and vice versa.  With my newly trained archaeologist eyes I survey the abundant jumble of walls and arches and pillars and such.  It sure looks confusing to me, but then again so does all of the rest of the things we see like this in Jerusalem.  I count four distinct levels of differing eras of construction.

Sure enough, at the very bottom, there is water in what might have been pools at one time.  It doesn't look like it would make anyone well or like the angel has troubled it in quite a while. The archaeologists guess this area is the most like location for the Pool of Bethesda.  How it got to be so confusing is still a mystery.  There are lots of rocks here and Indiana Jolie is in full picture taking mode.  

We move on to the Cathedral of St. Anne.  It is a crusader era structure.  It has immense columns and high arched ceilings with beautiful details.  It is not as adorned with beautiful paintings and the stained glass windows as most of the cathedrals have been.  The interior is only lit by the light coming through the windows and the front doors.  It is cool and the stone columns and smooth stone benches lining the walls feel wonderful after the hot sun we have been under.  

Once again it is suggested that we sing.  It might be my imagination or it might be because of the larger building we are in or it might be because after a few times of singing together that this time we sing it is the most beautiful sound we have made so far.  The reverberating harmonies seem to echo on and on in the domes above us when we pause to take a breath.  Leave it to a large group of Assembly of God church people who have been singing all their lives to make a heavenly sound such as this!  Wow, I could have done that all day.  

After not-long-enough, we leave the cathedral and enter the bright, searing sun once again.  It is discovered that there are restrooms here.  Once again, the people who designed the restrooms do not take any consideration to create modesty angles in their design.  When heading to the men's restrooms you have to walk the hallways that looks straight into the women's restroom.  You don't know this of course until you all of a you sudden realize this.  My recommendation is go to the bathroom before your leave the USA and then just hold it until you get home.  Crazy.

Wow, it has already been a full day and it is just now lunch time.  We are told that we can go to the Christian Quarter for lunch!  Yay!  I have a much better idea of where to go.  I also find a fun surprise...