If It's Wednesday It Must Be Jerusalem

I've never been on an organised tour holiday before, and I have to say I'd think twice before going again. First of all, we have a schedule, and woe betide anyone who messes with it. Now I'm all for having a brief idea of what you want to see, and, as a result, an outline of when you intend to see it, but when this starts to interfere with the experience you start to wonder if it's all worthwhile. Take the Holy Sepulchre, for example. We are marched into this grand building, given a brief talk about what it is, then, as we gaze in awe at our surroundings and try to digest that fact that here we are, in the middle of Jerusalem, in possibly our holiest site, our guide interrupts ou reverie with a shout of "Fifteen minutes back on bus, chop chop, shake a leg." We then have mere seconds to decide which bit we want to look at most, which is normally determined by the length of the queue, i.e. if there is one (and there usually is) we need to rule that out. Queues normally form in front of objects of veneration. Our guide tells us that the stone at the entrance is the stone that Jesus's body was laid on after death, except that it probably isn't. We can't get to the stone to make up our own minds, because it's covered with weeping Polish women. Later on in the week we visit another site which seems far more likely to be the place where Jesus was actually crucified, and where the weathering of the rocks carved out what is unmistakedly a skull in the cliff face.

So here's a typical day in the life of a Pilgrim on an organised trip:

- Get an alarm call at 5am, even though breakfast isn't until six and you need all of 15 minutes to get ready

- Have breakfast in the hotel. This consists of 15 minutes repeatedly putting the toast through the toaster (I found 8 revolutions gave you something approaching toast) and 5 minutes eating it.

- Put in your drugs order with Fr Angus, who has morphed into Dr Angus and is doing a roaring trade in immodium in particular. This is probably because we were told not to drink the water before being told "And here's some lovely salad for dinner. Would you like ice in your drink?"

- Clamber onto the bus and ignore the arguments over seats. The bus is a bit like a year 7 classroom, in that wherever you found yourself sitting yesterday, this shall be your seat for evermore. Tough luck if you're sitting next to someone who eats their own snot, or, in our case, in front of the happiest man on the planet, who even once referred to himself a "Happy Colin", and who rises at 4.30am daily to sing praises to the Lord before breakfast. Throughout the day, Happy Colin treats us to outbursts of joyous wisdom, including "This is the day that the Lord has made!" to "Blessed is the day when Jesus conquered Satan."

- Arrive at agreed destination and are promptly shown the "Coffee-Out" (the somewhat imaginative euphemism our guide uses for the toilet. Apparently he'll burn if he says "toilet".) If we're lucky there's also a Coffee-In to help us recover from our early start.

- Finally assemble outside whatever it is we're meant to be looking at. Obligatory group photo follows while the guide looks at his fake rolex and tuts. Thus gathered we are given a brief talk as to what it is we're supposed to be looking at, which usually goes something like this "Welcome to the Pater Noster. This is where Jesus is said to have taught his disciples the Our Father. Except he probably didn't. We don't know. Anyway, here's a nice church built on top of it by an Italian bloke in the 1920s, only you can't go in because there are some Poles sobbing on the doorstep. Enjoy! Ten minutes, back on bus, chop chop, shake a leg."

- Get mobbed on the way back to the bus by peddlars that could have stepped straight out of a pantomime trying to flog all manner of jewellery, postcards, wooden shepherds, water - you name it. We are forbidden from buying from these people: "They cheat you. I take you to nice place where you do lots of shopping."

- Arrive at "nice place" to do lots of shopping. This nice place is run by a Palestinian chap called George who claims we are receiving a 50% discount. Baskets are thrust into our hands as we walk through the doors, and free shot glasses of mind-blowingly strong coffee is liberally handed out as we pile ourselves high with olice wood nativity sets, "I Love Jerusalem" plastic snowglobes (oh yes - with pink glitter in place of snow!) and bottles of holy water and oil ("for annointing only") on which there is a three-for-two offer. As we leave we see our guide getting his cut, in the shape of handfuls of American dollar bills.
- Return to the bus, and it's onwards to the next place on the list, where, invariably, there's another church built by an Italian, a garden tended by Franciscan monks and a couvenir shop run by Johnny, "the greatest woodcarver not only in Bethlehem, but in the whole world." In Cana we are told categorically that this was not the same Cana where water was turned into wine - that Cana was destroyed was destroyed centuries ago by an earthquake. But you can still buy wine by the gallon in its many gift shops. We sampled some of their pomegranate wine - I'm afraid I cannot recommend it.

Anyway, chop chop, shake a leg, we pilgrims are becoming tourists for a day.