Jerusalem Walking Tour

Passenger596921

25 Jun, 2023

We did 3 tours with Genesis Boutique Travel. All three were so well organized and fascinating. Our main tour guide was a gentleman named Michel. Taking a tour with Michel was like having your own private college professor on Everything Israel! He knows the layers of this land’s history like he knows the back of his own hand. He starts each topic with the historical context, gives everyone’s perspective along the way, and then weaves in his own family history. He answered hundreds of questions by my family and then threw in a few jokes on the side. What impressed my family the most was the humanity and honesty that he brought to our discussions. We would recommend having Michel as anyone’s tour guide! One of the tours was to the Magal Kibbutz, and there, also, we learned so much about the history of that unique institution. And we learned the secret to the “blooming of the desert,” namely “drip irrigation.” We spent about 3 hours on the kibbutz so we also got to observe how it works today. Our kibbutz guide, Michael, was a great guide and inspirational person.

140mirandac

09 Jun, 2023

My brother and I were shown around Jerusalem by Shraga Ben Yosef. He is an absolute icon and had so much knowledge. We loved how he tailored the tour to our interest but still provided an unbiased and well rounded tour of Jerusalem. 3 hours was the perfect amount of time to get a background of the city and then do more exploring in the afternoon. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and learned so much.

Bruce A

08 Jun, 2023

We were getting started late since we got slowed down getting across the Jordon-Israel border and our guide was able to delay the start an hour since we were a private tour. Awesome!! We are Christians and preferred to dig more into Christian sites instead of everything within Old Jerusalem and our guide was willing to do that. Perfect! We got to see everything we wanted. All the Stations on Jesus' walk. Places of the crucifixion, etc. Getting a late afternoon (at 3 pm) start helped us in that the lines were not long at all to see everything! It was hotter though, but not bad. The only concern was being introduced to store owner friends of our tour guide to be given a hard sell to buy from their stores. We were not interested in that and really just wanted to see the sites our tour was designed to show us.

Connector53751686012

02 Jun, 2023

We had an open afternoon when arriving at Jerusalem and tried to fit in this tour. We were running an hour late getting across the border but the tour scheduler was able to start our tour an hour later! That was great! We started with a quick discussion about what we wanted to cover (just the Christian sites and Jesus’ 12 station walk). Our guide was willing to do just that. All went well through 75% of the tour until we were on station 9 of the walk. Then our guide asked if we could stop at a store to look at gifts. We didn’t want to but said we could look for a few minutes. Once we got away from that store owner we just happened to be 20 feet from another guy who our tour guide knew who also asked us to stop in and see some of his antiquities. That turned into another hard sell to buy some pottery and things he found below the floor of his shop. My wife and I were getting annoyed at wasting time shopping when we were there to see true sites. I asked to take a couple minutes to stop and buy a water and pack of crackers to keep going when he said he had a place we could go. Turned out it was an actual full blown restaurant that had water, but no quick buy and go snacks. We pushed on and finished our tour at the church where Jesus’ was crucified, body was anointed after his death, etc. it was later in the day which worked out to our benefit since the crowds were almost all gone (6-7 pm). The later hour helped us get around to see almost everything we wanted to in just under 4 hours. But, I do wish our guide was not so interested in us purchasing from his friends’ stores. After talking with some other tourists, it appears this is a common tour guide technique with the thought that the guides get a kickback of the percentage of sales at their stores. Then it all made sense. Not good for the tourists. I’ve now learned to be more up front with my tour guides and just tell them, “no”, I don’t want to stop and shop. I’m here to see what the tour was called. Not trinkets. I can do that later if I want to.

ertyuts

16 Jan, 2023

My family of 5 and I, from Canada, had arranged 3 tours with Sharona and Genesis Boutique Travel while we were in Israel over the Christmas season. Our first tour was from Haifa to Nazareth and The Sea of Galilee and surrounding area (Capernaum, Tabgha, Jordan River). Our guide Liran was very knowledgeable, and informative of the historical biblical past, and the present situation in the area and the sites we visited. We highly recommend him. Our second tour was from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. We visited the Dead Sea (to float), Qumran, Ein Gedi, Masada. Our guide Hillel was also a wealth of information and very knowledgeable about the Dead Sea, the scrolls found there, the archeology of the area and also the historical significance of what occurred there 2000 years ago. It was amazing. At 78 Hillel is amazing. Our third tour was from Eilat to Petra. Visiting this wonder of the ancient world was awesome, our guide Naser was very engaging, as humorous as the previous guides and very knowledgeable about Petra and the history and current situation in Jordan and especially of the archeology and historical significance of Petra. The carved monuments in Petra are a site to behold. All of these tours were very well planned, with very capable, informative, engaging, and friendly guides with reliable transportation. We can’t thank Sharona enough for that experience and her management and expertise in arranging our tours. In addition she helped us out by providing transport from Haifa to Jerusalem on a day that the trains and buses weren’t running (shabbat).