Together with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the culmination of this itinerary, the path believed to have been walked by Jesus in the hours of his sacrifice, is the element for which the city of Jerusalem is most sacred for Christians . The theological value of this path is very high, alluding to a qualifying element of Christianity, which is the belief that Jesus, divine being, became man and knowingly faced death to redeem humanity.
This path is repeated in countless places in the Christian world, both within churches and in the open air (among the latter I recall the paths in north-western Italy, and in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil).
In my opinion, even those who are not believers, but have lived in a Christian cultural way, will be impressed by the experience of this journey in Jerusalem.
The journey takes place almost entirely in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, and we had a Jewish theologian as our guide for the path, extremely knowledgeable and with a captivating speech. What better proof of the syncretism of this city?
The path generally starts from the courtyard of the Arab college of Al-Omariyeh (stage 1), then passes to the Franciscan convent of the Flagellation (stage 2), to the entrance of the Armenian Patriarchate (stage 3), to the church of Our Lady of the Pain (stage 4), at the door (generally closed) of a building where Simon of Cyrene helped Christ carry the cross (stage 5).
Other doors that are generally closed are the one at stage 6 (where Veronica is said to have wiped Jesus' face) and the one at stage 7 (where Jesus fell for the second time). After stage 7, the route leaves the supposed walls of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus (not the current ones). This, incidentally, explains why Golgotha could be not a hill, but a minimal prominence, today enclosed in the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.
The place marked as stage 8 follows, where Jesus met the weeping women, and the Coptic monastery of Deir as Sultan, at which a column marks stage 9 (Jesus falls the third time).
The next five stages are located in the premises of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, in a crescendo of solemnity.
I believe that this brief description has already rendered the hieratic atmosphere of the journey. Actually walking it, however, is another thing.