Walking through the Jaffa Gate seemed like the only way to enter Jerusalem Old City for my first time. It’s a short hike from my hotel in the German Colony, north up Hebron road. Highway signs made finding the way easy (thanks to the Font Bureau font, Interstate). Though once past the gate, there wasn’t any choice but to get lost.

With faith, good walking clogs, enough cab fare to get back and then some in my pocket – it was a day for losing and then finding my way. The hardest part was already over - getting on the plane to Israel. My most fervent recommendation for anyone planning a trip to this place is: do not read the US government’s travel advisory.

The streets and alleyways of Old City are a dizzying maze of piety & profane, ancient & modern, religious & secular, politics, politics & politics…The place demands and deserves acute attention - every pore and synapse, especially if you don’t want to miss the moment of bread.

It is a narrow bakery, easily overlooked between the Roman cardo and a path to the Western Wall. This is a simple space, simply dedicated to the alchemy of fire, water, yeast, flour and salt, It looks old. I want to believe it to be old. Everything in this place, old or not seems to take on a mystical patina of Jerusalem – even the neon sign glaring ‘pizza’ from across this sweet bakery-it. Maybe it’s called pollution.

My first lunch in the Old City was this: a round piece of wood-fired dough topped with chopped caramelized onions and a coke. Quietly under a date tree, I sat to eat - watching this world go by. And what a world it is.

ps dear friends…once i figure out how to post photos, i will. oxoali