Knights Palace

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K-Day today at ABC Wednesday.

At the end of Freres Street, next to the Latin Patriarchate, near the New Gate, in the Christian Quarter, inside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, is a small hotel.

It's the Knights Palace!

Before the middle of the 19th century, Jerusalem had no hotels. Only after mid-century, when tourism per se began to the Holy Land, were hotels built.

Pilgrims who came on pilgrimage had hostels for their meagre needs, but wealthier tourists from abroad wanted more comfortable accommodation.

Knights Palace dates mostly to the 1880s.

Even the restrooms in the lobby go with the knightly motif.

Some of the 50 hotel rooms (on the right, not the left!).

The Knights Palace website is here.

For a time, the building served as a theological seminary.

As you might guess from the KHS Knight's photo on the wall, the building is also the base in Jerusalem of the Knights of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

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AND . . . today is Michaelmas, the Feast Day of the Archangel St. Michael and All Angels!

As Nestor writes in his blog Every Day's A Holiday!, "Perhaps because of his position as the leader of the army of angels in Revelation, Michael became the patron saint of knights, whom fighters called upon in times of battle."

Happy Michaelmas to all Christians who are celebrating the feast day.

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