This morning we walked through the Jewish Quarter and out into the Western Wall area.  Our plan was to visit Temple Mount, or the other side of the wall.

Here is an encased model of what the temple may have looked like:

And here is an aerial view of the Temple Mount today.  The western wall is in the lower right corner.  The Mount of Olives would be at the top.

To enter the Mount, you go through security and this ramp near the Western Wall.

Entering the Mount.  This is Mount Moriah, where Abraham brought Isaac to be sacrificed and where Solomon built his temple.  Here’s a look from the air.  The Western Wall is in the top left corner.  We entered from that side.

Here’s a bit from Wikipedia:

The Dome of the Rock (Arabic: قبة الصخرة, romanized: Qubbat aṣ-Ṣakhra) is an Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, a site also known to Muslims as the al-Haram al-Sharif or the Al-Aqsa Compound. Its initial construction was undertaken by the Umayyad Caliphate on the orders of Abd al-Malik during the Second Fitna in 691–692 CE, and it has since been situated on top of the site of the Second Jewish Temple (built in c. 516 BCE to replace the destroyed Solomon’s Temple), which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The original dome collapsed in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23. The Dome of the Rock is the world’s oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture.

Years ago they let you go inside to see the stone where it’s believed Abraham brought Isaac (or Ishmael, according to the Muslim faith).  Here’s what that stone looks like: