Damascus Gate

The Damascus gate is perhaps the grandest of the gates of the Old City.

The gate has at least three names;

1. In English “The Damascus gate” because if you are going out of the city to Damascus, this is the gate you would use.
2. In Hebrew “Shaar shechem” which translates into English as the Shechem gate, Shechem being the Hebrew for Nablus. If you are going to Nablus, this is the gate you would use.
3. In Arabic “Bab el Amud” which translates into English as the gate of the pillar due to the fact that in Roman times, the emperor Hadrian, the guy who destroyed the Bar Kochba rebellion and built the wall to keep the Scots out of England, put up a milestone around here.

The path into the gate bends round to the left and then right in order to slow down mounted men entering the city. The whole area is filled with shops and stalls.

On Friday, at the end of midday prayers at the el Aksa mosque, there is a flood of Muslims exiting the Old City.

We head off to the left fork along el wad hagai street to the junction with the Via Dolorosa.

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