We began our day by visiting the Israel Museum, the country's largest cultural institution, loacted in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem. The museum is adjacent to the Kiryat HaMemshala, a large government zone where you'll find some of the country's most important buildings, such as the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the Bank of Israel, and various government ministries' offices. We visited two sites within the sprawling Israel Museum complex: an impressive, incredibly detailed scale model of Jerusalem from the Second Temple period (during the time of King Herod's reign), and the Shrine of the Book, a white domed building housing the Dead Sea Scrolls. From here we spent nearly two hours at the Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the Holocaust, situated on the western slope of Mount Herzl. The Yad Vashem was a dramatic and heart-wrenching experience that had me in tears by the end of the exhibits. We then headed over to the bustling Mahane Yehuda Market where we had lunch and wandered through the hundreds of vendor stalls, mingling with Jerusalemites as they prepared for the Sabbath. Afterwards, our guide took us on a stroll through the winding streets, alleyways and old courtyard neighborhoods of the Nachlaot district surrounding the marketplace, among the first Jewish communities established in the city outside the walls of Jerusalem during the late 1800s.