Day 1 - Qumran

(Here's the picture from the Dead Sea)

From Masada we drove north along the west coast of the Dead Sea to Qumran. Qumran is at the at the northwest tip of the Dead Sea. This little village was occupied at the time of Jesus' ministry and until the Romans put down the Jewish revolt in AD 70. Qumran is a little unique for it's interesting aquaduct system that runs through town and even right next to a central dining room of sorts. The aquaduct is pretty small, and there is debate about the function(s) it played. You can see it snaking below.

The aquaduct ran down from the mountains in the background of the next picture. If you look close, you can see a couple of the famous Qumran caves on the hillside. These are two of the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

We hiked up to get a closer look at the caves. We found the entrance to one of them, but the big cave you see was pretty far up there. We thought we were getting close, but it was still a good 100 feet above us. There is a marked trail for backpackers that starts at Qumran and goes back past the caves and through the mountains. You can make out one more cave from this picture.

We drove just a little further north and then cut over to the west to come into Jerusalem from the hilly east side. It was tough to see much at night, but still exciting to be in the city.