Jerusalem

Hi everyone,
Sorry, but our posts have not been very successfull from the boat. We are now in a total in Jerusalem, and will try again. Yesterday we saw the old city, visiting many of the religious sites and experiencing the Sukh. We were not too impressed with the way the churches have handled the so called holy sites, but it was interesting to see all the treditions. The Garden Tomb was very convincing, but I am glad it is not important that we should be able to identify the correct sites.
Today we went to the new city and saw the holocaust museum and the museum of the book. It was nice to see some Qumran originals at the latter. But the holocaust museum was disturbing. On the way back we came across a bus th5 was searched with a robot because of a bomb scare. We also saw many traditional Jews go to synagogue. Traffic almost disappeared and at the hotel they had a nice festive meal to celebrate the Sabbath.
Tomorrow we hope to see Massada and swim in the dead sea. The tour is so packed with events that it is hard to keep track of them all. BUt we are sure enjoying it. We hope the photos speak for themselves.

From Holland

Hi Everyone,
i will try once again, using another program, as my last three posts are held up. We have arrived in the Netherlands, but only the mist gives that away as there is little else to see. Yesterday we bussed fro Cologne to Maastricht where we saw the old town and Andre Rieu's castle (from afar). Then we returned to the boat. Next we visited Noah and his family on the Ark. We had plannned to see the half scale model of the ark in the Netherlands, but by chance discovered it was moored one km from our own ship. This model did not really show how the ark might have been set up, but instead of animals it had tableaus of many bible scenes and would be a great place to take children. However, being on board did bring to mind how big the original ark must have been.
Today we hope to arrive in Amsterdam and see the city, but tomorrow we will have to disembark. We have rented a car and hope to visit some friends before flying on to Israel.