Haifa to the Negev Great Continental Railway Journeys

I'm embarking on a new railway adventure

that will take me beyond Europe.

I'll be using this,

my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide dated 1913

which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel

for the British tourist.

It told travellers where to go, what to see,

and how to navigate the thousands of miles of tracks

crisscrossing the Continent.

Now, a century later, I'm using my copy to understand

how the great powers of Europe shaped lives and lands

outside their continent.

I want to rediscover those places and people before their way of life

was transformed forever by the advent of war.

My journey begins in modern-day Israel.

This, 100 years ago,

was known as Palestine or the Holy Land.

It was home to the prophet Abraham and to Jesus Christ

and the city of Jerusalem in particular

is revered by Jews and Christians and Muslims,

and whether you live in the Americas or Europe,

vast swathes of Africa, the Middle East,

or even Australasia,

here, you may find your cultural roots

and like the traveller of a century ago,

I feel the thrill of arriving at a spiritual home.

I'll be following my Bradshaw's to the port of Haifa,

before heading south to Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

From there, I'll travel to Jerusalem where I'll cross the barrier

which now separates Israel

from the Palestinian territory of the West Bank,

on my way to Bethlehem.

I'll then follow my guide to the Dead Sea,

before heading south to Be'er Sheva and the Negev Desert,

where my journey ends.

In Jerusalem, I'll visit the holy sites...

'..discover how the Holy Land left a mark on British royals...'

-You're telling me that British kings were tattooed?

-Yes.

..and follow in the footsteps of a celebrated British hero.

And up we go!

Wow. What sort of targets does TE Lawrence select?

He blows up substantial sections of the Hejaz Railway.

Travellers following my guidebook in 1913

arrived on the Western fringes of an empire

which once stretched from Eastern Europe

and the Balkans to the Middle East and North Africa.

But since the closing decades of the 19th century,

Britain, France and Russia had regarded the Ottoman Empire

as the sick man of Europe,

and it occupied a region vital to their own imperial interests.

My first stop will be the city of Haifa,

which Bradshaw's describes as "pleasantly situated

"at the base of Mount Carmel

"on the south side of the Bay of Acre.

"The mount is frequently mentioned in the Bible

"and has always been held in reverence."

But 100 years ago,

the pilgrims were being joined by modern-day tourists -

people drawn not so much by the Torah or the Bible or the Koran

as by a much more modern sort of book.

At the turn of the 20th century,

Palestine and the port of Haifa were developing rapidly.

As the Ottoman Empire foundered, immigrants from Russia

and the western European powers established new enclaves.

They brought with them innovations

such as the telegraph and the railways,

which made travel to the Holy Land easier and encouraged tourism.

I get the impression from my Bradshaw's guide

that travelling to the Holy Land at the beginning of the 20th century

was regarded as quite an adventure.

It's recorded that there are no direct ships from Europe,

you have to change in Egypt

and then Bradshaw's says that some of the holy sites

are spoilt by the tawdriness of the surroundings

as though the guide book expected the shrines

to be kept in a pristine state,

not appreciating that actually, they exist

in a country which is hot and vibrant.

When travellers following my 1913 guide reached Haifa,

they would have been intrigued by a new landmark on the slopes

of Mount Carmel - a new faith had been established here

and today, its spiritual heart attracts

half a million visitors a year.

In modern Haifa, the most spectacular religious shrine

belongs to the Baha'is, a sect who share

with Islam, Christianity and Judaism a belief in one god.

The shrine is a modern reconstruction of the 1909 original.

It houses the remains of the faith's founder, Siyyid Ali-Muhammad,

also known as the Bab, who died in 1850.

In the years before my guide was published,

the Baha'i faith was also spreading to Britain.

An artist from Bath called Ethel Rosenberg converted in 1899.

'The religion now has around five million followers worldwide,

'many of whom come here on pilgrimages and some to volunteer.'

-Hello.

-Hi.

-Hi.

Can I give you a hand with the dead heading?

-Of course you can.

-Of course.

-Thank you.

Have you any idea how many volunteers you are

and how many countries you come from?

Rose is from Kenya. I'm from the United States.

I have a friend here from Australia and New Zealand.

There's people from Canada, from the United Kingdom.

Think of any country, you name it, the Baha'is have a presence there.

This is famously a country which has been beset

by political problems and conflicts

but do you feel that in Haifa, there's quite a feeling between

the different religions, different faiths?

There is. I really feel like this is a really welcoming place

to anybody who comes here.

The major faiths are all present in Haifa,

which is one of the most successfully mixed cities in Israel

and the only one in which the buses run on the Sabbath.

By the early 20th century,

travellers were pilgrim tourists,

visiting the religious sites as part of a modern-style holiday.

Interested not just in the shrines, but also the sounds,

the smells, and of course, the food.

-Hello!

-Hi, Michael.

I see that falafel is your speciality.

-Yeah.

-What is falafel? Chickpeas?

Yeah, it's made of chickpeas and parsley and a lot of herbs

and lot of love as well.

I can't believe how skilfully he's putting them

into those little cups and then just dropping them into the boiling fat.

He's done it over, like, 40 years.

These spicy fritters are a typical Middle Eastern fast food

and recipes may be handed down through generations.

So, Michel, what's the technique? Let me see.

-Just fill that up.

-Yeah, then push it out.

-And then push it out.

Well, that looks simple enough.

You have to turn it around with the other hand.

-A little.

-OK.

-Is that looking good?

-That's good.

And a bit lower to the fryer. Yay! And in it goes.

I think you can be in our staff so we'll put you on the shift next week.

I think you'd get a lot of complaints.

The falafels should be eaten piping hot with plenty of sauce.

-Thank you, Michel.

-Welcome.

So, here we are - falafel with this sesame seed sauce.

With the sesame sauce. It's called tahina in Arabic. Tahina.

The best tahina comes from the West Bank.

Crispy. Mm! Delicious! So spicy. Superb.

Thank you, Michael.

If the sights and smells of Haifa seem exotic to me now,

imagine the impact on early-20th-century Britons.

New railway lines were opening up the region

making trade and travel for Europeans

practical, safe and affordable.

I'm meeting the manager of Israel's Railway Museum, Chen Melling

at Haifa's original station built in 1903.

-Hello, Chen.

-Hi, Michael. Nice to meet you.

-Great to see you.

And what a superb setting with the original Haifa station

and then all this rolling stock, current and, of course, historic.

What line was this original Haifa station on?

The station was built for the Hejaz railway's branch to Haifa.

While the line was built as a branch, it eventually turned out

to be the most important part of the system,

both in its operations and income

as well in its impact on the local surroundings.

Begun by the Ottomans in 1903,

the Jezreel Valley branch line

gave access to the sea

from the Hejaz Railway

which ran between Damascus and the holy city of Medina

in present-day Saudi Arabia.

When the Hejaz Railway was built,

was it one of many lines in the Holy Land?

Actually, it was only the second,

the first one being the Jaffa-Jerusalem railway

which served the Jewish and Christian pilgrims

going to Jerusalem.

This is similar to the Hejaz Railway's publicised purpose

of serving the Muslims going on pilgrimage

to Mecca and Medina in the Hejaz.

But as the railway network grew, so too did British nervousness

that Turkish troops could use it

to threaten Egypt, India, and the Suez Canal.

The British were worried about the Hejaz Railway

even during construction.

They almost came to an open war between the British and the Turkish

around 1906 when the Turkish planned a construction

of a branch from the main line to Aqaba Bay.

This was never built due to the British opposition to it.

Although that extension was prevented,

the Jezreel Valley branch ran until the 1950s.

Today, there's hope that trains will travel along this section once more.

Now a new line is being built roughly along the same route

which would serve the new and old towns along the edges of the valley.

The railway is now a major part of economic life here.

And how does a railway enthusiast like you feel about that?

It's utter joy for me.

In the last 25 years, it's a complete change.

The railways were a source of high tension at the time of my guidebook.

Today, there are other reminders of the region's ongoing conflicts.

I'm following my guide book along the coast, bound 50 miles south.

My next stop, Tel Aviv, doesn't get a mention in my Bradshaw's guide

because it was founded only in 1909 to the north of the port of Jaffa.

But at the beginning of the 20th century,

the numbers were swelled by Jewish refugees

escaping persecution across Europe

who swelled the growing city of Tel Aviv.

Is it OK? Would you like my book?

Six railway lines bring passengers

to Tel Aviv from all over the country.

With large commercial and technological districts,

the city that was embryonic at the time of my guide

is now Israel's metropolis.

From reading Bradshaw's, you'd imagine

that the Holy Land consisted of narrow streets

winding between ancient synagogues and Christian churches and mosques.

None of that would prepare you for Tel Aviv

with its high-rise buildings

and its railways threaded down the centre of modern highways.

It's a kind of blueprint for the city of the future.

Today, Tel Aviv has a reputation as a party town

with a large international community and a vibrant beach-side nightlife.

So I head for the shore.

-Hello, guys.

-Hello.

-Are you having fun?

-Yeah.

-Are you from Tel Aviv?

-No.

-Not originally.

-I mean, now, we are.

-Now you are? What? You're immigrants?

Yeah. From the States, from France.

Tel Aviv appears to be the Israeli city where you have fun.

-Is that right?

-Yeah. It's like an oasis.

-I'd say so.

There's this expression that you pray in Jerusalem

and you work in Haifa and you have fun in Tel Aviv. Is that right?

-I think people...

-That's a way to summarise it.

-People here work.

-Yeah.

-Did you just call us lazy?

Sometimes. We're actually on the job right now.

We are paid beach-dwellers.

Actually, they say that the nightlife here

doesn't get going really until about 1:00am

but I've got a busy day tomorrow

so for me, it's an early night, into bed with a good book.

In all of my travels,

I can't remember waking up in such a young city.

I want to find out how Tel Aviv grew out of the old sea port of Jaffa.

I'm meeting Tomer Chelouche

at the monument to the city's founders, his ancestors.

Tomer, if I understand correctly,

your great grandfather was one of the founders of Tel Aviv.

-Tell me about that.

-That's right.

The Chelouche family was one of the first founders of Tel Aviv.

The story starts 170 years ago

when they came here from Northern Africa.

They took part in the construction

of the first Jewish city in the world - Tel Aviv.

Tomer's family came to the Holy Land in the 1840s.

40 years later, Jews fleeing anti-Semitic riots and massacres,

called pogroms, in Russia and Eastern Europe

began to arrive in a wave of immigration

known as the First Aliyah.

The ancient Biblical name for the Jewish homeland is Zion,

and from 1897, the idea of creating a Jewish national home in Palestine

spawned a political movement known as Zionism.

It grew strongly at the turn of the 20th century

as further European pogroms

propelled a second wave of Jewish refugees

towards these shores.

Their first new city was Tel Aviv.

It was founded in 1909. Tell me how it happened.

It's a magnificent story.

60 Jewish families bought a huge lot of land

which they parcelled out between them in a lottery.

They took 120 sea shells.

Each family drew two sea shells

and eventually, they parcelled out the land between them.

And you can see that already in 1949, when they constructed this monument,

they were thinking about the dream

that this city will become eventually

the city of skyscrapers here in Israel.

The dream has come true.

Successive migrations of hundreds of thousands of Jews

were to cause unrest and discontent among the native Arab community.

And as the Jewish population grew,

so a momentous cultural shift began to take place in the Holy Land.

This beautiful square is named after Hayim Nahman Bialik,

the national poet of Israel.

A century ago, he gave the Jewish people

both their rhyme and their reason.

Bialik, a Ukrainian Jew born in 1873,

helped to establish modern Hebrew

as the national language

and is revered today as the Israeli Shakespeare.

Hello, Ayelet. I'm Michael.

'Ayelet Shlonsky

'is curator of the museum at the poet's Tel Aviv home.'

First of all, the house - complete surprise to me.

I did not expect anything as colourful as this.

What does it tell us about Bialik?

Bialik was the architect of the Hebraic culture.

He helps to create institutions such as the Tel Aviv Museum,

the Hebraic University,

Israeli Opera.

Creating a new national language was seen as crucial to unite

the diverse European Jewish populations arriving in Palestine.

It also heightened awareness

of the pogroms taking place across Eastern Europe.

His big creation was actually to go

and write about the Kishinev pogrom, 1903.

Synagogues are being burnt and people are being killed

and he blames the Jewish people not to do anything about the pogrom.

We cannot just sit quiet when other people

create pogroms against us.

Bialik's work is so important to Jewish culture

that studying it is compulsory for children in Israeli schools.

Well, the house also has a very, very beautiful archive.

And this, then, I assume is his poetry, is it?

Yes, this for example,

is a poet about his own source of inspiration.

Hm. The struggle of the poet.

Mm-hm. And it says...

SHE SPEAKS IN HEBREW

Let me read the English translation.

"I didn't win light in a wind fall,

"nor by deed of a father's will

"I hewed my light from granite, I quarried my heart."

Wow, beautiful in Hebrew, beautiful in English.

Yes. Bialik was a beautiful man, you know.

In 1913, the newly established city of Tel Aviv

and cultural leaders like Bialik

were laying the foundations for a new Jewish state.

Following more than two decades of chronic unrest

between native Arabs and Jewish immigrants

and the deaths of hundreds of British military peacekeepers,

the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948.

The need to provide a home for hundreds of thousands

of Jewish refugees after the Holocaust

added to the political pressures.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs were displaced

and Palestinians today still remember that as the Catastrophe.

Their demand to return to their former homes

continues to be fiercely debated.

But tourists following my Bradshaw's in 1913

could not have foreseen

the intensity and scale of the conflict that was to unfold.

So, from Tell Aviv, the new gateway to Israel,

towards Jaffa, the old gateway to the Holy Land,

from one hub to another, there's only one way to go - by bicycle.

For Edwardian tourists bound for Jerusalem,

Jaffa would have been the first port of call.

The Eastern Mediterranean is so beautiful.

This is the way to travel...

..if you can't go by train, of course.

So this is Jaffa.

Bradshaw's tells me,

"that travellers usually enter the country at Jaffa.

"The quickest routes from Europe are via Alexandria or Port Said."

But long before I knew Jaffa to be a city in Israel,

it was known for something else, famous, actually, around the globe.

In the late 19th century, Jaffa oranges were big business.

By 1870, 38 million were dispatched to Europe each year.

I'm meeting former exporter Yoram Weinberg.

Many people made a living out of this business.

There was the grower, the picker, the exporter.

Everybody was happy and this business went up and up and up.

How did the oranges reach the port?

There were the convoys of camels

coming toward the road with the oranges.

There was a train here on a special, very narrow rail.

Hundreds of boats coming and going loaded with oranges

or with people, people going and coming from the ships.

Exports rose steadily, particularly to Britain...

..and trade was boosted by the railway.

Would I be right to think that while the oranges

are leaving the port of Jaffa, immigrants are coming in?

This country was a country of pilgrims.

There was a good train network here, so many pilgrims came

and the immigrants always came through the port of Jaffa

because this is the only entrance.

Today, the once-Arab port is home to both Arabs and Jews.

Unfortunately, this port disappeared.

We don't see the activities of port.

There are some fishermen here but no more business in this port.

This is Old Jaffa Station,

built as part of the first railway line constructed in the Holy Land

at the end of the 19th century

to take pilgrims from the port of Jaffa to the holy places.

For the site of Solomon's temple,

for Calvary where Christ was crucified,

for the mosque of the golden Dome of the Rock, this was the gateway.

In Bradshaw's day, the train ran from Jaffa to Jerusalem.

Today, it leaves from Tel Aviv.

I'm travelling on the older of two lines

that existed at the time of my guidebook...

..sharing the journey with railway historian Tony Travis.

-Hello, Tony.

-Hello, Michael.

I join you for a great scenic railway journey.

Jaffa to Jerusalem was the first railway line built in the Holy Land.

-Was it difficult economically and physically?

-Yes, both.

Economically because it was necessary to get a permit

called a firman from the sultan in Constantinople.

Eventually, a young Jewish entrepreneur from Jerusalem

called Joseph Navon

managed, in 1888, to obtain a permit but he couldn't raise any money

so in the end, he sold the rights to the railway

to some Catholics in Paris.

Opened in 1892, the French-built line

was then the largest civil engineering project

undertaken in the Holy Land.

Traversing the mountains and winding through the valleys of Judaea,

the 54-mile line crossed iron bridges

designed by Gustave Eiffel in France.

Who was the line really built for?

For pilgrims and tourists.

In particular, they wished to visit the holy places,

particularly Jerusalem.

Tourism had grown tremendously from the mid-1850s.

For example, Thomas Cook & Sons

opened up the Holy Land to travellers from Egypt in 1869.

Thereafter, many thousands travelled here

and then by 1913, there were 40,000 trips on the railway

by tourists and pilgrims.

Europeans were keen tourists,

and their rulers took a political interest in the region

as it began to modernise,

at the same time as the Ottoman Empire that ruled it

continued to weaken.

During the 1890s, the Ottoman Empire was very close to the German Empire.

There was a great deal of trade between them

and I think the British, like the French and other European nations,

were very concerned.

There was a great deal of competition

between the European nations

to make their presence known here

and this is seen still to this day.

For millennia, Jerusalem has been a centre point

for Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Since the Middle Ages, the old city has been divided

into the religious quarters that we find here today.

"Jerusalem," says Bradshaw's, "is an irregular square

"enclosed within walls 38.5 feet high and 2.5 miles in length."

And there's a sketch map to the quarters of the city.

I remember a map from the 13th century

which I saw in England's Hereford Cathedral.

It shows Jerusalem massive in the middle

and the cities of London and Paris and Rome are small

and dotted all around because then, in 13th-century Christendom,

religion was at heart of everything.

Today, in the 21st century, religion is at the heart of everything

still for millions of people

and for them to enter through the Jaffa Gate

is to come to the very centre of the world.

Bradshaw's dedicates many paragraphs to the city's holiest sites.

I'm heading first to the Christian quarter.

What are you making of it? How are you enjoying it?

It's amazing. It's beautiful. We're enjoying it so far.

What do you make of the mix of cultures and religions in Jerusalem?

Well, it's a fascinating melting pot.

I mean, we said "shalom" and "tobah" to a guy

and he said, "I don't speak Hebrew"

and we realised we'd just wandered into the Arab quarter.

I mean, it's one on top of the other.

You don't realise how close it is together but it's amazing.

Do you think many people would be surprised to find out

how much there is in common between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity?

Maybe for some people, it would be.

Especially with the conflict that's going on at the moment,

you'd think they'd have completely different histories and cultures

but actually, it's all centred around here in Jerusalem.

This is the 4th-century Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

where Christians believe

that Christ was crucified, buried, and resurrected.

Bradshaw's is quite sceptical about the Chapel of the Sepulchre.

"Everything is so encased in marble and the surroundings are so bizarre

"that a strong mental effort is required

"to picture a recess in the naked rock fitted to receive a body."

It is not a strong mental effort that is needed, it is faith,

to believe that when Christ died, he left his light in the world.

Tourists following my guide book

lived in an age of scientific discovery

and scepticism about the literal truth of the Bible

was becoming more common.

I feel that even in that age of reason a century ago,

non-believers would have been moved

by the places mentioned in the Bible.

I'm meeting Haseem Razzouk,

whose family business has made its mark on visitors over generations.

-Michael.

-Good to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

Why is there a connection between pilgrims and tattoos?

A lot of people who used to come and do their pilgrimage

here in the Holy Land

would want to get a cross or a similar religious tattoo.

It goes back about 300, 400 years here in the Holy Land.

And what are these beautiful objects here?

Well, those are actually wooden blocks.

They are carved with different designs, stories from the Bible.

So obviously, these are historic.

So did your ancestors tattoo any distinguished, famous people?

We know of many. King Edward and King George,

also we know of them that they were tattooed in the Holy Land.

You're telling me that British kings were tattooed?

Yes, emperors, kings, even British soldiers

were tattooed by my grandfather as proof and as certification

of their visit to the Holy Land.

Christians would have a small cross tattooed on the inside of the wrist

which served as a kind of passport

to the holiest Christian sites.

This will be the place to have the tattoo.

This is a nice place on the arm where it doesn't really hurt much.

It hurts more down at the wrist.

'You didn't really think I'd go through with it, did you?'

-Beautiful.

-Thanks very much.

From the Christian quarter,

it's a short walk to the Muslim quarter,

which contains the third holiest site in Islam.

Bradshaw's tells me that "the Temple Haram Al-Sharif

"is a large enclosed quadrangle

"where there are three mosques and some relics of Herod's Temple.

"The most considerable building is the Kubbet es Sakhra,

"or Dome of the Rock."

A century ago, to visit,

you had to apply to the British or American consul

who obtains permission from the authorities.

In today's political situation,

getting permission from the authorities

is even more complicated.

We've just about been allowed to film,

but inside, I'm not allowed to say a word

but I will say I can't tell you how excited I am

to see these magnificent buildings.

Al-Haram Al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary,

is a raised area of the old city

with enormous religious significance for Muslims, Jews and Christians.

The Kubbet es Sakhra,

or Dome of the Rock, was built in the 7th century.

It is one of Islam's most sacred monuments.

It's from the rock, enshrined in the dome,

that Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The shrine is built on the site of the Jewish First Temple

where Jews believe that Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac.

I feel quite overwhelmed

and so few people are allowed in at any one time

that it's very sparsely populated

and so it's been the one place really in Jerusalem

where I've felt the full sense of dignity that these places merit,

a feeling of spirituality.

The site is also known as the Temple Mount

and at one corner is the Western Wall.

This is the holiest of all Jewish monuments,

all that remains exposed of the Second Temple,

which was destroyed by the Romans in the 1st century AD.

Men cover their heads before it.

"The Western Wall," Bradshaw's reminds me,

"is the site of Solomon's temple and of a later temple erected by Herod.

"Here, each Friday, Jews gather in the late afternoon

"to pray and to chant lamentations."

Well, now they come every day of the week, and at the Wall,

I saw some lost in deep prayer and others clearly ecstatic

with the joy of arriving at the holiest of places for any Jew.

Nick Pelham writes about the Middle East, its history and its present.

-Hello, Nick.

-Michael, good to see you.

Good to see you.

Here we are with a wonderful view of the Dome of the Rock

and the Western Wall.

We're not very far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The most sacred places for Muslims, Jews, and Christians.

What do those three religions have in common apart from Jerusalem?

They are all rooted in the holy text,

they are peoples of the book and the book in all three faiths

describes the centrality of Jerusalem.

It makes Jerusalem the centre point,

the geographical centre point of the three faiths,

so we are really at the point

where scripture, tradition, and geography all meet.

So really, although we might not realise it on a day-to-day basis,

a lot is held in common.

There's far more that they have in common than actually divides,

and you can see, though, the struggle here in Jerusalem

for elevation, for supremacy,

for priority, to essentially achieve the best sites in the city.

I'm now heading out of the Old City into modern Jerusalem.

Since 2011, a new light railway

has connected the cities old and new...

..but running into Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem,

its construction was controversial.

I've seen how within the Old City of Jerusalem

the three great monotheistic religions vied with each other

for access to and control over the holy places

but I also understand that outside the city walls,

the great powers were in competition,

establishing institutions for their nationals -

banks, insurance companies, post offices and hotels.

I'll be staying at the American Colony Hotel,

but before I head there, I am keen to make one more stop

at a place where this city's complex and rich history

comes together under one roof.

Mahane Yehuda is the city's largest food market

and can offer even the most secular traveller a taste of the divine.

-Hello.

-How are you?

-Very well, thank you.

I just love all this fresh produce. It just all looks fantastic.

The dates and the glorious nuts. Ooh!

That's really kind of you. Thank you.

Oh! Tastes quite different from the way it looks.

-I'm kind of thinking cheese.

-It's sesame and chocolate chips.

-Sesame and chocolate chips?

-Yeah.

With amazing sweet and savoury treats on offer,

this is a delight for all the senses.

Look at that!

Look at all those lovely pistachios saying hello.

That's fantastic. Thank you so much.

A day amongst the Jerusalem crowds,

observing intense religious devotion

has been exhilarating but draining too, and sleep will be welcome.

Bradshaw's recommends that I engage a dragoman,

a nice old-fashioned word for a guide.

"They arrange everything necessary - eating, sleeping, travelling

"and they speak English."

Mine today is called Nader

and I need him because now I need to go into Bethlehem,

which is in The West Bank,

in territory that was occupied by Israel in 1967

and there is a barrier between Jerusalem and Bethlehem

and my dragoman will help me to cross it.

Today, tourists may make the five-mile journey

into the Palestinian West Bank only accompanied by a Palestinian guide.

-I'm Michael.

-Lovely to see you.

-Lovely to see you.

-Welcome.

-You're going to take me to Bethlehem?

-Yes.

-Let's go.

-With pleasure.

The separation barrier is 8m high, cast in concrete,

capped with razor wire

and punctuated by watchtowers and checkpoints.

For Israelis, it gives protection against bombers.

For Palestinians, it's made daily life fraught with difficulties.

So quite often, you pick up people here at Jerusalem

-and take them into Bethlehem...

-Yes, exactly.

-..for sightseeing and so on.

Yes.

We're now approaching the checkpoint

which will take us through the barrier

and at this point, we will have to switch off the camera.

So we got through the security checkpoint

with no difficulty whatsoever

but we did go through two very grim-looking walls

and a kind of no-man's-land in-between.

Whatever the reason for it,

I was depressed to see two peoples separated by a wall,

scarcely improved by attempts to decorate it.

Here, the barrier has been turned into a work of art.

They call it the wall museum.

There is the famous art from your country,

he draw five drawing here on the wall.

His name is Banksy.

And in the front of us, there is the drawing for him.

The dove with the olive branch

'wearing a bulletproof jacket.'

The people you drive,

are they mainly tourists or would you call them pilgrims?

Are they religious people?

Some, they are religious people and some, they are tourists.

If he start to pray or he start to cry,

means he's religious

and people just want to take picture quickly and leave,

-you can tell from that, yes?

-Of course, of course.

So this is the old entrance of Bethlehem.

You've been an excellent guide and dragoman. Thank you.

-You are most welcome.

-Bye-bye.

Tourists following my guidebook were drawn to Bethlehem,

and it's clear that many millions have since followed in their wake.

As my guidebook puts it plainly,

"The Church of St Mary is built over the birthplace of Christ,"

and it wasn't just a baby that was born to the virgin,

it was the second Abrahamic religion,

one with hundreds of millions of followers across the world.

Even at the time of my guide book, places like Bethlehem

were beset with tourists,

who were offered trinkets and religious artefacts.

My Bradshaw's remarks, "There's a small industry

"in crosses, rosaries and mementos."

Another attractive souvenir in those days was the local embroidery,

a tradition which is being revived by local Arab women today.

I'm meeting Helen Saman at the Arab Women's Union.

Hello, Helen.

-Hello.

-I'm Michael.

-Hello.

-Very good to see you.

You're welcome. Very good to see you, too.

How old is the tradition amongst Palestinian women of embroidery?

Embroidery has been made in Palestine for ages,

for a very long time, perhaps several centuries.

What is it that you're doing in the centre today?

In the centre, we are trying to revive the tradition.

For a period of time, it was very slow,

very few people could do it

but now it is back into fashion.

Today, the centre sells the work of local Palestinian women.

But in such a fragmented and restricted economy,

selling to a population which depends on international aid

to feed itself is a challenge.

Is this a table mat? No this is bigger.

Let me see what this is, please.

-It's going to be a runner.

-It's going to be a runner.

How long will it take you to do this?

-Two weeks.

-Two weeks. Wow, it's beautiful work.

Let me see how you do it.

Amazingly quick, so fast.

Well, it must make you very happy, Helen,

to see a tradition being revived.

Of course, yes, very much so.

It's time to leave Bethlehem

but for this stretch of my journey, there's no railway,

nor do I see a donkey,

which Bradshaw's recommends for this excursion.

I'm bound for the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea.

A sight I've always wanted to behold, the Dead Sea.

According to Bradshaw's, 47 miles long,

9.5 miles wide at the broadest.

"No living creature other than microbes

"has been found in the sea nor have shells been found

"but the desolation of the scene has been much exaggerated.

"There's generally a slight haze over the sea

"and when this clears away, the view is beautiful."

In that, I'm fortunate indeed. This evening, it looks stunning.

The absence of life in the sea is due to its extreme saltiness.

1,300 feet below sea level, the mud here is rich in minerals,

which are said to be revitalising

and the area is surrounded by spas catering to a healthy tourist trade.

Apparently, if you want soft skin like a baby's,

there's nothing compares to Dead Sea mud.

Because I know I'm worth it.

The Dead Sea is actually a lake

but when its water evaporates,

dissolved salts are left behind and the sea becomes naturally buoyant.

For reading in the Dead Sea, I tried to find some scrolls

but Bradshaw's will do very nicely.

My final day in the Holy Land begins at Lod Station

from where I will head south, bound for the Negev Desert.

It seems that in 1913, a journey to the desert was arduous.

"The country is naked and sterile,

"the roads are mere stone-strewn ways practicable only on horseback."

But after that date, a railway was built to the south

and today, the train will take me from Lod to Be'er Sheva -

Hebrew for 'Seven Wells'.

Early in 1915, the Ottomans began

to extend the Jaffa to Jerusalem railway

south from Lod to Be'er Sheva in the direction of the Suez Canal.

I'm meeting historian and archaeologist Shimon Gibson.

Hello. It's a pleasure.

I imagine that the British

were highly suspicious of all these railway developments.

The British were suspicious and the Ottoman Turks were suspicious.

There was suspicion on both sides.

And the suspicions actually started out

because of mapping operations

which were being undertaken by the British

in the southern deserts of Palestine towards the Sinai Desert.

This was in 1912, 1913,

and this was all done under the guise of exploration

but the reality is that they were spying,

they were amassing a lot of information

which could then be used by troops.

The Palestine Exploration Fund, or PEF,

was a London-based organisation which had undertaken

extensive mapping expeditions in Western Palestine

in the late 19th century.

In 1908, the Fund had begun to work

with the British War Office on the advice of Lord Kitchener,

to collect information

about the less well-known south of the country.

When does TE Lawrence first appear on the scene?

TE Lawrence actually was an archaeologist,

and he is brought down by the British Museum

and the Palestine Exploration Fund

to conduct an archaeological survey in the area of Be'er Sheva

and he sent out to look at archaeological sites

which have already been surveyed.

Now, I'm an archaeologist,

I can tell you that there is no point in exploring sites

that have already been explored.

Lawrence's archaeological work was a smokescreen

for mapping the area and cultivating local Bedouin tribes

who might aid Britain in the event of hostilities.

Once the Great War broke out,

the Ottoman troops and supplies moved south along the new railway,

some of whose original structures still exist today.

What sort of targets does TE Lawrence select?

He needs, really, to cut off their supplies,

their ability to move at ease,

and so he targets the railway lines

and he blows up substantial sections of the Hejaz Railway.

Lawrence's guerrilla war tied down thousands of Turkish troops,

enabling British forces under General Edmund Allenby

to seize Gaza and Be'er Sheva.

Be'er Shiva has been taken over, then they move on to Ramla

and Lod, Lida as it was known then.

They've captured those two towns. They then head off to Jerusalem.

And in December of 1917, Allenby arrives in Jerusalem.

Months before this decisive victory,

Britain had made conflicting promises -

to support both Arab self-rule

and the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

That sets in motion a chain of events

which still exists to this present day with this conflict

which exists today between Israel and the Palestinians

and in the past with its neighbours,

Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, and Jordan, of course.

Lawrence famously lived as a Bedouin,

becoming embedded in the Arabic nomad culture.

For the Edwardian traveller,

the desert must have been a sight unlike any other.

Desert makes up half the region

and no visit to the Holy Land is complete without seeing it.

-I'm Michael.

-Nice to meet you.

I'm meeting Bedouin leader Salman Sadan.

We like to invite guests in the desert.

70 years ago, 80 years ago, it was nothing here,

just mountain, and wells, and springs.

We live in a desert, so we help each other in a desert.

No supermarket, no shop, no nothing.

-You're famous for your hospitality.

-Yes, Bedouin, yeah.

What does your life in the desert consist of? You have animals?

We have two kinds of animals in the desert - black goats and camels.

The skin from the goats, we use it for to carry the water inside,

and the meat, we eat it.

We make a lot of kinds of cheese from the milk.

The camels, we ride on the camels, we drink the camel milk.

-You still lead quite a traditional Bedouin life, do you?

-Yes.

Look, we live in Israel now

and Israel became the life of the peasants different

because we're not allowed anymore to be nomads in the desert

so we stay in one place.

It's a bit different?

Yeah, it became different.

Then you stuck between modern life and old life.

Do you love the desert?

Of course. It's part of my heart.

Bedouin may not be permitted to roam any longer

but they maintain the traditions that they can.

-You don't need an oven?

-No.

-You don't need a pan?

You don't need a baking tin?

Nothing, very easy.

Put the bread inside the fire, and that's it.

The flat bread is cooked in a fire pit and covered in charcoal,

giving it a crisp crust.

You know when you buy watermelon? How you know it's good or not good?

-You touch the outside.

-Tck, tck, tck, also the bread.

-You hear whether it's crisp.

-Yeah.

-You hear the noise?

-Yes. Hollow sound.

-Yeah.

I never saw anything like that.

The crust is completely crunchy

and the crumb is...

..sort of sour and delicious.

-That's great bread.

-Thank you.

There's one last experience before I leave the Holy Land.

And this is kafir.

After the camel, he'll see you

and he'll say you are a Bedouin.

It's a Bedouin in a pink shirt.

-OK.

-How do I look?

And up we go.

Wow. I feel a Lawrence of Arabia complex coming on.

No railway will be safe.

In just 100 years since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire,

this region has been as turbulent and war-torn as any in the world.

Immigration and the creation of a Jewish state

has produced a map unrecognisable from my Bradshaw's.

And as I toured the holy places

whose significance for Jews, Christians, and Muslims

is traced back over millennia,

it struck me that a century in human history

is but the blinking of an eye.

Next time, I'm following in the tracks

of Edwardian railway travellers

to experience the thrills of early 20th-century France...

Wow, off we go.

..tracing the origins of the modern nation

from its most famous sporting event...

This would have been used in the first Tour de France in 1903.

My goodness!

..to its stirring national anthem.

HE SINGS IN FRENCH

Bravo, monsieur!