guided tour

Here's what to expect on the podcast:

• What is the concept of a guided tour?
• How does a guided tour enhance the overall travel experience?
• What factors should be considered when selecting a guided tour group?
• How does the guest-to-guide ratio affect the quality of the guided tour experience?
• And much more!

Meet Courtney Iannuccilli:

Courtney is currently the VP of Global Marketing for Active Adventures. Before joining this global adventure tour company, Courtney focused on building her skills in marketing for travel brands within the advertising agency world. Later she returned back to school, received her MBA, and started to work on the client slide of advertising marketing.

Courtney lives in Rhode Island, is a mom of two, and recently returned from an epic adventure in New Zealand, where she visited the corporate headquarters of the two travel brands she promotes, Active Adventures & Austin Adventures. In her role, Courtney prides herself in providing guests with life-changing trips all over the world and seeing how the marketing team can pull levers to make a positive impact within the Active Adventures global organization.

About Active Adventures:

United by a powerful belief in the ability of travel to create inspiring, life-changing moments Active Adventures (HQ in Queenstown, New Zealand) and Austin Adventures (HQ in Montana, USA) have come together to create a world of opportunities for global travelers. The partnership will enable more adventure travelers to benefit from a wider range of global destinations and experiences. Both companies specialize in small group adventure trips, off the beaten path, with a personal touch.

SPECIAL PODCAST OFFER: 15% off any Active Adventures or Austin Adventures trip 

PROMO CODE: HEART15

Connect with Courtney Iannuccilli!

• Website: https://activeadventures.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtneyiannuccilli/

Connect with Host, Julie Zolfo

• Free Gift: https://www.livingthetravelersheart.com/free-gift
• Be A Podcast Guest:https://www.juliezolfo.com/podcast
• Facebook Group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingthetravelersheart
• Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/juliezolfo/
• LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliezolfo/

In the previous episode you could hear an introduction to the history of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem.

This episode can be used as an audio tour when you are visiting the Church. Start on the square in front of the main entrance.

If you are listening from elsewhere you can follow the description and use your imagination! There are lots of photos online as well as YouTube videos.  Here is a 20 minutes documentary by AlJazeera English that gives an idea about the church and the community:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrsqNJIRGPU

If you want to read the transcript of this podcast you can do so under the transcript button on the Buzzsprout page or on the website :

https://storiesfrompalestine.info/2022/10/01/holy-sepulchre-church-audio-tour/

Follow Stories from Palestine podcast on social media, sign up for the newsletter, visit the website and support the show with a donation, all through one link:

https://linktr.ee/storiesfrompalestine

One of the most visited sites in the old city of Jerusalem is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is where Christians venerate the place where Jesus was crucified and where he was buried in a tomb. Pilgrims that visit Jerusalem will follow the 'way of the cross' or in Latin the 'Via Dolorosa', the way of his suffering. On the route there are 14 stations where the pilgrims stop to remember something that happened to Jesus on his way to the Golgotha (in Aramaic) or the Calvary (in Latin). This translates as the place of the Skull. The location, on the cliff overlooking a stone quarry, where Jesus was nailed to the cross. The last 5 stations of the Via Dolorosa are inside the church.

In this episode you can learn more about the crucifixion and why emperor Constantine and his mother Helena decided to build the first Church commemorating this event on this exact location.

In the following episode I will take you into the Church for a guided audio tour.

To connect to Stories from Palestine podcast on social media or to sign up for the weekly newsletter click : https://linktr.ee/Storiesfrompalestine

A short episode recorded under the olive tree in the garden to update you on the crowdfunding for the fees of the tour guide program in Jerusalem! With good news that we reached the goal! Including a shout out to some of the donors but I couldn't mention everybody because there are 69 people who supported me!!

Also an update about the visit to the Open House of the School of Tourism and the English test I had to do there that consisted of a text to praise the greatness of Israel and how I managed with that...

Connect to Stories from Palestine on social media and sign up for the newsletter directly with this link: https://linktr.ee/Storiesfrompalestine

After a long summer break I am back with new episodes. But from now on you can listen to the podcast bi-weekly.  In this episode I will tell you about my new plans for this coming year and I need YOUR help (and help of all my friends, relatives and podcast listeners!) to proceed with this plan. That's why I am explaining you why I think it is an important step in my life and how you can help me. If you agree and if you can and want to support, then this is the link you need to click: https://www.gofundme.com/f/national-tour-guide-license-for-kris 

Connect to Stories from Palestine on social media through the linktree: 
https://linktr.ee/Storiesfrompalestine

In this episode you can hear all about the Visit Palestine October program that Saleem and myself are organizing! This 10-days program includes a full day of olive picking and two nights with local families in the village of Abud.

We will visit many of the people and places that you have heard about in the last two years of podcast episodes!

We will start the program on Monday 3 October with an introduction to get all participants on the same page when it comes to history and terminology that we will need to understand throughout the visit.

The first nights we will stay in Beit Sahour in a family hotel and we will discover Bethlehem area, Battir and Jerusalem. Then we will go towards Jericho and on our way we will visit several of the desert monasteries and of course Hisham's palace! Of course we won't miss out on the experience of floating in the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth.

The next two days we will be in Abud, a small village north west of Ramallah. The people of Abud will welcome us in their homes and we will get a chance to connect with the local families. On Sunday there is a full day of olive picking including a nice brunch on the field.

In Taybeh we have the opportunity to visit the famous Taybeh beer brewery as well as a local distillery.

In Nablus there is so much to explore, the Turkish bath, the olive soap factory, the spices shop, the Ottoman clock tower, the Green Mosque and of course we will eat Knefeh Nabulsiya.

On our way back to Bethlehem we pass by Mount Gerizim and we will visit the Samaritan community and learn more about their relation to the land and their claim that the true Temple was not in Jerusalem but on Mount Gerizim.

There is a free day in Bethlehem that you can use to rest and relax, to go shopping, to discover more in Bethlehem or in Jerusalem and we can strongly advice to take the Sacred Cuisine food tour in the old city of Jerusalem.

The last day we head to the West towards the Mediterranean Sea and we will visit the city of Jaffa.

For more information about this program visit the website and request the PDF file
https://storiesfrompalestine.info/travel-to-palestine/

On Sunday 17 April I took the bus from Beit Safafa to the old city to join a tour in Silwan with Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO that, in their own words, works  to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect ancient sites as public assets that belong to members of all communities, faiths and peoples.

That day was Easter Sunday for the Catholic Church, Pesach for the Jews and Ramadan for the Muslims. As we walked up to Mount Zion we saw a lot of police blockades, police everywhere and Jewish people walking towards the plaza in front of the Buraq wall. We heard helicopters flying over and we realized it was a tense day to go on a tour in Silwan. During the tour we heard shooting several times.

Silwan is a Palestinian village close to the old city. Silwan is the place where the city of Jerusalem started in the Canaanite period, in the Bronze Age time. This is where the first small settlement was established near the Gihon spring.

Today there is a big archaeological site and a lot of excavations are happening in Silwan. With archaeologist and founder of Emek Shaveh, Yonathan Mizrachi, we walked around the visitor center and the excavations and other parts of Silwan, to talk about how archaeology is used to make claims of ownership and to create a justification for taking over the Palestinian area of Silwan.

There are two settler organizations active in Silwan: Elad and Ateret Cohanim. They use different methods to take over houses from Palestinians and create Jewish presence in the neighborhood.

In this episode you can hear from archaeologist Yonathan Mizrachi that there is no evidence that the palace of King David was built in this area. They have not found anything from the 10th century, the time of King David, although the site is called 'City of David' archaeological park.

If you want to know more, visit their website : https://emekshaveh.org/en

If you want to connect to Stories from Palestine podcast on social media, check out the YouTube channel, sign up for the mailinglist or make a donation to support the podcast, then you can use this linktree : https://linktr.ee/Storiesfrompalestine

New tour guides, who finished the tour guide program at the Bethlehem Bible College with me this summer, organized a day trip to Nablus and Sebastia. There were about 35 Palestinians on the bus that took off from Beit Sahour early in the morning. After 2,5 hours we reached the Jacob's well church in Nablus. This church is a very recent building that was built on the location where several churches were built around a water well that is said to be the well that Jacob dug on the land of Shechem. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham who came from Mesopotamia and is considered the founding father of all three monotheistic religions.

In this podcast episode you can learn more about the relevance of this water well also in the New Testament of the Bible when Jesus met a Samaritan woman at this well with whom he had a very important conversation about the location of the Temple. Samaritans believed that they should pray to God in the Temple on Mount Gerizim while the Jews prayed in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus reveals to her his true nature and tells her that the time has come when the location of prayer is not relevant anymore. The woman goes to her village and tells everyone about Jesus. She is considered the first female evangelist.

After our visit to the Jacob's well church you can hear more about the archaeological site of Sebastia, a city that was established in the Roman time under emperor Vespasian. We visit the ruins of the forum and basilica, the theater and the Hellenistic tower. Up on the hill are the stairs that used to lead to the Temple for Augustus and behind it a big structure that is often indicated as an iron age palace for the Israelite kings Omri and Ahab, but some archaeologists date the site to later times. And the Byzantine church ruins are also interesting as they give access to a crypt where John the Baptist is said to have been buried, his body that is, after he was beheaded by Herod Antipas.

You can hear all about these historical sites in this podcast episodes. With thanks to Ibrahim Khair, Elias Khair, Nayif Gharib, Waffa Sabat and Saleem Anfous.

If you want to sign up for the mailinglist, connect on social media or contribute to the podcast you can use the following link: https://linktr.ee/Storiesfrompalestine

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