"For centuries pilgrims have travelled to the Holy Land in pursuit of what one Victorian pilgrim called "the desire and dream of a lifetime." This distinctive volume brings together personal stories of journeys to Palestine that reveal the difficulties in fulfilling that desire and show how travellers - some famous, some obscure - found the reality as compared to the dream." "Drawing on testimonies of travellers from the time of the Crusades to the present day, R. D. Kernohan describes the hazards and uncertainties as well as the joys of pilgrimage. His book is enlivened by details about what travellers ate, drank, and paid during their journeys in addition to their feelings of spiritual devotion and their intense, even ecstatic experiences upon reaching Jerusalem." "The road to Zion is indeed no ordinary highway. Kernohan also deals clearly and frankly with great themes of history and theology, with what travellers saw of dramatic changes and bitter conflicts in the Holy Land, and with how political and social changes have affected - and still affect - patterns of pilgrimage to the land where Christians, Jews, and Muslims live in uneasy coexistence."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved