East-Jerusalem Audio Tours

East Jerusalem is the kind of place that resists simple description because everyone who arrives brings their own history with them. The Old City sits at its center, and within roughly one square kilometer you will find the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where pilgrims have been lighting candles since the 4th century; the Western Wall, Judaism's most sacred accessible site; and the Dome of the Rock, completed in 691 AD and among the most recognizable structures on earth. No other place packs this much contested meaning into this small a space.

Walking through the Old City's four quarters -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian -- requires a kind of patient attention that no map can prepare you for.

The covered souks of the Muslim Quarter run into the reconstructed Cardo of the Jewish Quarter; the smell of za'atar bread from a bakery off the Via Dolorosa cuts through the incense at a church entrance. The political situation here is genuinely complex, and honest guides will not pretend otherwise. What they will show you is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban landscapes on the planet, where layers of history are not metaphorical but literally underfoot.