The first thing that surprises you when you look at Jerusalem from the air is the scale. The Old City, which feels endless when you walk its alleys, is in fact only about one square kilometer: a small square of stone surrounded by a modern city of hundreds of thousands. The walls around it were built by the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century, and from above you see the complete square: four quarters, the gates, and the Tower of David guarding Jaffa Gate, a citadel built and rebuilt over more than two thousand years.

Above the Old City spreads a mosaic like no other: the golden Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, church domes, minarets and bell towers, all in the same Jerusalem stone that paints the entire city one warm golden shade. To the east the Kidron Valley slopes down, and beyond it rises the Mount of Olives, its slopes covered by the world's oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use: hundreds of thousands of stone graves facing the Temple Mount.

South of the walls, a narrow elongated hill stands out. This is the City of David, the ancient core of Jerusalem, where the city stood more than three thousand years ago. From the air you suddenly understand why here: the hill is surrounded by valleys on three sides, and at its foot flows the Gihon Spring, living water in the heart of hill country. The topography, invisible in the streets, is revealed from above like an open map.

And on the western side, modern Jerusalem: the Knesset, the Israel Museum, the campuses, neighborhoods climbing the hills, and the Jerusalem Forest wrapping the city to the west. One city, three thousand years, one flight.

The Jerusalem route: about an hour above a city like no other.מסלול ירושלים: כשעה של טיסה מעל עיר שאין שנייה לה.