Thursday, November 24, 2005

Brilliant Ideas for a Perfect Weekend

Why not a break to Jerusalem - the perfect romantic destination.
Immerse yourself in the (bustling) markets, visit the holy sites, and then follow the Baedeker guidebook for a relaxing afternoon stroll:

"From Yafa Gate we may pay a visit to the Lepers Hospital. We descend the second street to the left, and reach in 5 min. a Greek cafe shaded by a large tree on the right. We pass some houses and tombs on the right, beyond which we ascend three steps, pass through an iron door, and traverse the garden of the hospital. This establishment was fitted up in 1867, and is presided over by a German custodian. The disease is not at all infectious, but the seclusion of the patients is necessary to prevent them from marrying and thus perpetuating the evil. Hideously repulsive leprous beggars are still met with on the Yafa road, as many of them, particularly the Jews, have a greate repugnance to being lodged in the hospital; but it is hoped that most of them will in time be thus secluded, as there is no other effectual mode of eradicating this loathsome and generally incurable disease. The malady being hereditary, the children of leprous persons are almost always attacked with it in later life. In 1873 there were thirteen patients in the hospital.
The patients in this hospital present a spectacle of human misery in one of its most frightful phases, and the visitor will not fail to sympathise with the benevolent efforts that are being made to alleviate their suffering to the utmost, and to prevent the farther spread of the scourge.

Karl Baedeker, Jerusalem and its Surrounding, Leipzig 1873.

No comments: