Masada. Qumran.
We started our day south of the Dead Sea (which is beautiful!!) at Masada in the Judaean desert. It is a fortress on top of a mountain. Herod originally had a palace there (but only visited once!). At the time of the Jewish revolt of AD 70 against Roman rule, a group of Jewish people took refuge in this abandon palace and held off a siege by the Roman army for nearly two years. Rather than fall to the Roman’s, the people took their own lives. The siege ramp and Roman encampments around the mesa plateau are still visible.
We moved on to Qumran - where the Dead Sea scrolls were found.
We stopped at Ein Gedi - David hid from Saul in this area and it is a water source mentioned many times in Bible as people walked (hiked through). While there it started to rain and they closed off the upper waterfalls.
We stopped at the Shroud of Turin museum on our way back to hotel.
We had some free time so we walked back to the church of the Sepulcher and explored more of the streets of the old city of Jerusalem.
