Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Via Dolorosa ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Christians believe this site to be the most important events as it includes both the hill of Calvary and the tomb where Jesus rose from the dead. Yes, it’s all under one roof. That’s why I included the first photo, just a file photo, not mine. The church is a sprawling mishmash of different areas and architectures. It was somewhat gloomy with scars of destructions and reconstructions. We could see work being done while there. It also has a confusing conglomeration of over 30 chapels and worship spaces. Several masses were underway while we were there. 

I went to this church twice. Vicky was sick the first day our group went but our guide took her and I back on another morning. My posts here will include photos from both of my trips. Like with the Via Dolorosa, Calvary Hill and other sights do not coincide with the visions in my mind of these places, but such is life. 

You can see the church from above with its two blue-grey domes and its red-topped, cropped bell tower. The entrance is just to the right of the bell tower. The tan building top area is the church, set tightly within the surrounding buildings.

Immediately after entering the church, we turned to the right and climbed a steep, curved flight of stairs, which you can see in the 2nd photo. In essence, we were ascending the hill of Calvary. It’s about fifteen feet up the ‘hill.’

Upon arriving at the top of the stairs, there were two chapels, side by side. The chapel on the right is the Catholic Chapel of the Nailing to the Cross. There was a mass underway there when we arrived. The Greek Orthodox Chapel of the Crucifixion is on the left and is in the photo below. Underneath the Greek altar is a silver disc which is believed to be the where the cross stood. There is a round hole in the disc. Vicky and I both got down on our knees and reached down through the hole to touch the limestone rock. You can see some of the rocks through the glass on either side of the altar.

Another steep flight of stairs in the rear of the Greek chapel leads back to the ground floor. There lies the Stone of Anointing, a slab of reddish stone flanked by candlesticks and overhung with eight lamps. You can see this in the fourth photo, and this is where Jesus’ body was anointed. Pilgrims were kneeling and kissing the stone with great reverence.

I included the next photo just to show another of the many chapels and worship spaces. This was a group of Coptic Egyptians which is one of the many denominations sharing parts of the church.

I don’t know that I ever actually thought about how far it was from Calvary Hill to Jesus’ tomb but I’m sure that I expected that it was farther than 30 yards. It’s not. That’s why all of this can be under one roof of this church.

Noa, our guide, explained so many basics to us and I really appreciated the understanding about these things that it gave me. In this case, Jesus was crucified on a Friday afternoon. That meant that it was almost the Sabbath. That didn’t allow time to take his body to Nazareth or Capernaum for burial. It couldn’t be left out during Sabbath or animals might get it. So, a well-off follower, Joseph of Arimathea, happened to have a family tomb cave nearby and offered it up for Jesus’ burial site, given their limited options.

The next photo is just of the central worship space in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Edicule marking the location of Jesus’ tomb is on the left in this photo.

The Main Rotunda above the Edicule is in the below photo with the rays of sunlight shining down towards the Edicule.

Our guide took us into an authentic first century burial cave near the Edicule and we were able to crawl into the side burial caves or chambers. You can see the main entrance to this cave in the next photo.

The next photo is the entrance to the Edicule. Even at 6am, it was blocked off by the grate as there was a Mass being said inside. We only had to wait about two minutes to enter, but when we did, another group about to have another mass rushed past us and into the Edicule. Vicky made her way inside, but an extremely tall Franciscan blocked my entrance. I don’t believe that he spoke English but with hand gestures and words, I managed to have him let me pass and go inside.

Inside is a small space. You can see the people that rushed past us. The woman has her hands on the marble where Jesus’ body was laid. But as we couldn’t see any way to squeeze inside, we decided to exit. But then the same Franciscan would not allow us to leave. We didn’t know why but both Vicky and I were insistent and used lots of hand gestures and he eventually recanted and let us back out. Whew!

Jerusalem Miscellaneous 1

We did so darn much in Jerusalem that if I included it all in this blog post, it would go on until Christmas, so I won’t. That’s why this post is Jerusalem Miscellaneous. Why is it Miscellaneous 1. Because there will be at least a Miscellaneous 2. Why else?

Some of these were shorter or longer visits but I think that they are all worth mentioning.

Our first visit one morning was the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. It’s Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust to preserve their memories. It contains millions of documents. No photos were allowed inside, however. After our visit, we met with a Holocaust survivor named Ruth, in the 1st photo. She was one of the “hidden children” and she told us her story. My biggest takeaway from the museum was that early Fascism and Naziism were marked by book burnings, wild conspiracy theories, and raucous political rallies. Oddly enough, that all sounds recently familiar to me.

The next photo is on Mount Zion and is considered to be the ‘traditional’ site of the Last Supper. It’s at least an old medieval building that fits the bill. It’s upstairs because the animals would have been downstairs. Our guide said that there was probably no table; Jesus and the apostles would have just eaten on the floor.

One additional insight that I’ll add here is about the apostles, thanks to our guide, Noa. She mentioned Mathew 17, verse 24, which was about paying the temple tax on arrival to Capernaum. Jesus sent Peter to find the coin to pay the tax on the belly of the fish, a 4-drachma coin “that will suffice for himself and Peter.”

Noa continued that the Torah (5 Books of Moses) indicates the age of those who are required to pay the tax which appears in Exodus 30, verses 13-14. Then she asked us “what does all this mean?”

I drew a blank. Noa said that since Jesus, Peter, and all the apostles went into the temple but only Jesus and Peter had to pay the tax required of all age 20 and over, then the rest of the apostles were “TEENAGERS!” Think about that!

We left Jerusalem and drove about six miles to Abu Ghosh, an Arab-Israeli community. Our first main stop was the Grand Mosque of Abu Ghosh, as seen in the photo below. It has four minarets and is the second largest mosque in Israel. It was funded with help from the President of Chechnya and the Chechen people. The writing on the entrance way to the mosque is in Russian. Israel and Jerusalem are complicated.

We met Issa Jabar in Abu Ghosh. He was a former teacher and high school principal and the former mayor of Abu Ghosh. He knew everyone in town. After showing us around town, we went to his house for lunch. Amal, his wife, made us lunch. We had baba ghanoush, seven or eight other dishes, and two types of melons for dessert. Then he served us coffee and he explained his “philosophy of coffee.” Issa is on the left. His philosophy of coffee allows for negative answers without anyone ever having to say “No.” He gave us several examples. He was a great person and a character.

Our next stop that day was the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center. Our focus was to see the twelve beautiful Marc Chagall windows created by the artist and installed there.

Herodium

Late this morning, we drove out of Jerusalem to the heart of Judea. Shortly after leaving Jerusalem, we came to a ‘border crossing’ of sorts. It turned out that we had driven into an area controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The sign (photo 1) said that it was illegal and dangerous for Israeli citizens to enter. I asked our guide how she could do it and she just shrugged and said, “American tourists.” We drove to Herodium National Park, which is run by the Israeli Civil Administration, despite being located within the Palestinian Authority area. Our guide said that Israel had retained control over certain national park and antiquities areas within that space. This is a major archeological site and the burial location of Herod.   

Herodium (or Herodion) is named after Herod the Great who built this fortress between 23 and 15 BCE. It’s on the outskirts of the Judean Desert in the West Bank, three miles southeast of Bethlehem. Herod was the King of Judea which was on the far edge of the Roman Empire. It’s an incredible ancient building complex. The excavation and restoration work here has been going on for awhile but has a very long way to go. Still, it was very much worth the visit.

The first photo was one of many such signs that we saw after passing the border checkpoint.

The 2nd photo is a model in the visitor center. I show it to give an idea of what we experienced and what a crazy building project this was by Herod. A Jewish historian who lived at this time described it as “a hill raised to the height by the hand of man and rounded off in the shape of a breast…” The visitor center is at the far right which is where we started our tour.

The next photo is the small theatre which seated 400 people. It was apparently used to entertain palace guests. It had a private box behind it that was lavishly decorated for the king and his guests. You should also notice how high is the top of the mountain up behind the theatre. Herod had this mountain made by hand from what had been a simple hill.

There were over 200 steps from the theatre to the top of the mountain, and it was a hot day.

The palace fit within the top of the mountain. You can see a small glimpse in the next photo.

We continued our tour at the top and later came back down through secret tunnels. 

Several places that we visited had the remnants of elaborate frescoes and mosaic floors. Even though long ago abandoned and buried, we could still see that they had once been fabulous.

The photo below was the tower at one corner of the palace. It was originally three times the height seen here.

The photo below was Herod’s grand reception hall. We felt we deserved our own reception there so we went ahead and had one.

Our views from the top of the palace were spectacular. It was also very educational, thanks to our guide, Noa. In the next photo, the lowest settlement is one of the controversial Jewish towns. The others behind it are Palestinian towns. We learned a lot about historical excavations, the politics of settlements, and more. It’s a very complicated situation.

We came back down most of the hill in the tunnel system. The tunnel system contained two main components: cisterns from Herod’s time and tunnels from the time of the revolts. Herod built at least three rain-fed cisterns on the mountain’s slopes and another near the top. Water was moved upwards by means of vessels and ropes. My favorite part of the tunnel system was that it was so cool inside, versus the bright and muggy day outside. Plus, we were moving downhill. In the last photo, you can see that, at times, it was steeply downhill.

Jerusalem Misc. 2

Once again, we packed so much adventuring into Jerusalem and the local area, I need to be brief with some of it.

Vicky was sick the day our travel group went to the Old City. Noa, our guide, took us back one morning at 5:30am. You can see Vicky in the first photo at the Western Wall with her note to put inside the wall. Men and women have separate sections to approach the wall. Knowing that, I took two quick photos of Vicky before the split. Right afterwards, our guide told me that no photos were allowed there on the sabbath. Lucky for Vicky, I’m pretty quick with my camera.

One morning, we went to a Palestinian neighborhood to the home of a Palestinian woman, Reem Salame. She is on the right in the photo below. She started out preaching a lesson of love and understanding. She seemed open and honest and did not air any grievances. She just explained the difficulties of life for Palestinians in Israel. At one point, I asked her point blank: did she favor a one-state or a two-state solution. Reem said that she doesn’t care; she just wants to live in peace. She said that most Jews and Palestinians feel that way but the political leaders on both sides are the problems.

One afternoon, we went to the Pantry Packers, part of Israel’s social services network. We spent an hour packing and labeling food for needy families. You can see Vicky packaging oatmeal in the 3rd photo. It was a great experience.

OAT, our travel company, arranges for home-hosted meals on their trips. This night, we had a dinner in the heart of Jerusalem with a modern Orthodox family. The living room and our dining table are in the 4th photo.

Raffi and Ronit, the couple standing in the last photo, were our hosts. They were a fascinating couple with three kids, all from prior marriages. Dinner was multiple salads, bread, “Jesus fish,” rice, green beans, and chocolate cake.

Masada

One morning, we drove east from Jerusalem and visited Masada National Park. It’s an ancient fortress built on top of a massive 1,300-foot-high plateau in the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. Who would build a fortress in a place like that? Who else but Herod the Great. He actually built two palaces for himself on the mountain and fortified the entire place between 37 and 31 BCE. This trip has certainly shown me why Herod was known for his colossal building projects.  

Masada is such a large complex that I found it a bit overwhelming. It has had multiple excavations but there are plenty more to do. As such, I’ve decided to limit my posts to my two main thoughts when I visited Masada. My first thought was that I know that Herod was a great builder, but WHY build at Masada? I mean, there had to be better places that would have been easier, cheaper, and closer to other amenities.

I took the first photo while waiting for the cable car to take us up to Masada. I suppose the first answer for building there was that it was highly defensible. Sure, but what if I wanted to run down for a six-pack?

There was no good way, without a drone, to really capture Masada. I’ve inserted an online photo for that purpose. This photo explains Masada better than I can. The Dead Sea is on the left and the cable car landing is just off the plateau on the left side. That’s where we started and we walked most of the plateau.

The 3rd photo is my view from the top towards the Dead Sea. You could certainly see an approaching enemy.

The next photo is another online photo. We visited storehouses, barracks, residences, the church or meeting space, and many more buildings and spaces of unknown purpose.

The last photo was a church or synagogue. But what you should notice is the dark black line on the left side of the rock wall. This was done all over Masada. The wall below the line is as it was found on excavation. The construction above that line has been done after excavation but most likely with the same original rocks.

Masada Water

This is my continuation from Masada National Park. My second main thought on visiting Masada was how did they get their water? This area only gets about one inch of rain per year. I didn’t find any springs on the plateau. We saw baths with elaborate frescoes on the walls, hot pools, cold pools, and steam rooms, so they used lots of water. There were probably several thousand people living up there. And finally, being a Californian where we are currently suffering from a severe drought, I’d like to know.

The park was keenly aware of my thoughts about water. They had the answers for me. Herod’s engineers built two dams near the peak of the mountains. Aqueducts captured the water flowing through the wadis (dry ravines) and channeled it into the cisterns. These large reservoirs pocked the western ridge of Masada. They collectively had a capacity of over ten million gallons. But how did it get to the top of the mountain? They had pack animals and slaves carry the water from cliffside cisterns to ones at the surface of the plateau, by way of a hidden staircase. 

The park had an active exhibit of Masada’s water system. You can see the model in the first photo. I arrived after the demonstration had started so I didn’t hear it all and didn’t get to video it. But the guide poured a pitcher of water onto the “mountains” on the right side of the exhibit, and we watched the water follow the channels and fill the cisterns.

The next photo is on the plateau, and you can see the backside of a cistern in the lower right quadrant, with a bridge over it.

The 3rd photo shows a water channel in the side of the mountain just like in the water exhibit in the first photo.

The 4th photo is just a closeup of a water channel in the mountain side. I’m not sure how they hung onto the side of the mountain in order to create these channels.

The last photo was the smallest water feature that we saw, a bath, but I used it instead of the larger ones because of the remnants of the ancient frescoes. It must have been a beautiful bath.

Machane Yehuda Market

We left Jerusalem on this morning but before we left, we visited the Machane Yehuda Market. It’s the largest market in Jerusalem with over 250 vendors. It covers two streets, many aisles, and many small walkways. Parts of this market are outside and other parts are inside. It’s a traditional market and like many markets, the experience is greatly enhanced by the sounds and smells that go with the sights.

This market was loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and dried fruits, olives, fresh juices, beans, coffee, seeds, breads, cheeses, meats, pastries, clothing, as well as bars, restaurants, specialty foods, coffee shops, and on this day, even some right-wing Zionists protesting something. We had it all! We also managed to sample our way around this market and mind you, this all comes on top of our regular three meals a day.

I love the stores like the first one. We ate lots of dates, dried apricots, and prunes, and lots of nuts and spices while we were in Israel, so I enjoy just looking at all these food items.

In the 2nd photo, Vicky is sampling a shooter of a ‘Yemenite shake of Uzieli’, whatever that is. It was green and very interesting but also hard to describe.

I don’t know if everything in the 3rd photo is baklava, but I can say that it all looked good.

Coffee was very popular in Israel and in this market. We purchased coffee on multiple occasions.

Vicky is sitting at Azura Restaurant in the last photo. It’s an iconic eatery in the market. It’s in the Iraq section and known for its hummus and other North African dishes. The owner/cook is standing behind Vicky to the right. These dishes were Iraqi Kube. It remined me of stuffed dumplings except that the dough was different.

Jerusalem Misc. 3

This is the third and last ‘miscellaneous’ post from Jerusalem. Once again, we just did too much to put everything in its own post.

The first photo is Saint John the Baptists’ birthplace. It’s in the town of Ein Karem, not too far from Jerusalem. It’s inside the Church of Saint John the Baptist which belongs to the Franciscan order. Excavations here date to the 1st century BC. Either this church or one nearby mark the place where the visit from Mary to Elizabeth, John’s mother, was supposed to have happened. We were joined by a lot of pilgrims at this stop.

We didn’t see that much wildlife on this trip so I’m working this sighting into the post. This was in the Judean Desert on our way to Masada. We saw a herd of Ibex, perhaps fifteen or so. Our guide said that there’s a spring nearby and so they stay right in this area. They weren’t too concerned about us taking their photos.

After leaving Masada, we stopped by the Dead Sea for a swim. Actually, it was a float, not a swim. It’s a landlocked salt lake and has the lowest elevation of any body of water on earth. It’s about ten times saltier than the major oceans with a salinity of about 34 percent. Vicky and I thought the Dead Sea needed some color. I think you’ll agree we supplied it.

It was about 100 degrees at the Dead Sea and was too hot to walk barefoot. What it wasn’t too hot for was stopping in at the lowest bar in the world for a tall, cool one.

I will end our time in Jerusalem with a sign I noticed on an outside wall in the area near the Azura restaurant. They had several of these plaques dedicated to some of the old market vendors. What I loved the most about Moshe Elhav was his motto which was, “Count your blessings, not your money.”

Tel Aviv

We are now in Tel Aviv, our last stop in Israel. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 as a modern housing neighborhood on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. Today, Tel Aviv is the city and Jaffa is like a neighborhood of Tel Aviv. It’s located on the Mediterranean coastline and is the economic and technological center of Israel. Tel Aviv has the largest economy per capita in the Middle East and has the highest cost of living in the world. It’s a party capital in the Middle East with a lively day life, nightlife and a 24-hour culture. There’s nothing like ending a trip in a party city.

It's hard to get a grasp of big cities like Tel Aviv. My attempt to do that is to show you some photos that I took from the private club lounge up on the 17th floor of our hotel. It had balconies on two sides, so I took these photos. Oh, and did I mention where we stayed in Tel Aviv? Where else, but at Herods Hotel. We couldn’t seem to get away from Herod in Israel. 

This first photo I took off the balcony in our room. We had no complaints about our room at Herods.

The 2nd photo is looking north from our hotel. The Gordon Pool was established in 1956. It has swimming, lessons, saunas, plus all sorts of sporting events. Our guide said they empty and refill the pool water daily. Amazing!

The 3rd photo is to the northeast of our hotel. There are a few interesting buildings such as the tall one that is most left in the photo.

The next photo is looking southeast. Tel Aviv is a big city with a population nearing 500,000 people.

The last photo is looking south. The land jutting out in the distance is Jaffa and that’s where we go next.

Jaffa

Jaffa is an ancient port city and now the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv. Jaffa is claimed to be the oldest port in the world and was founded by Japheth, the son of biblical Noah, not to be confused with our tour guide, Noa. The city was established at the latest around 1800 BCE. It was built on a high ridge giving it a broad view of the coastline and strategic importance in military history.

Jaffa is known for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon, and Saint Peter. It was also known later for a mythological story and for its oranges. The Egyptians and Napoleon have history here as well. We spent the better part of a day in Old Jaffa.

Saint Peter’s Church and bell tower is the largest and most distinct building in Old Jaffa. The church shown in the 1st photo was originally built in 1654 but destroyed twice. The current church was built between 1888 and 1894.

The 2nd photo is the port of Jaffa. We saw very little activity in or near the port, but the water was beautiful.

The next photo shows buildings directly along the port’s edge. Since the bulk of our small travel group is in the photo, I may as well dig a little dirt about them. For the most part, we had a fabulous group of people. BUT, you didn’t want to get between them and a coffee shop, or them and a bar with a bartender on duty, or between them and an ice cream store. Other that that, they were terrific people…and you don’t see me getting in their way.

Like so many ancient towns, Jaffa had plenty of narrow, winding, stone streets, and alleyways. This is just one of them.

Much like the last photo, the old streets also go up and down quite a bit. It wasn’t usually flat ground in Jaffa.

Micro Jaffa

I would say that much of our time in Jaffa was spent at the “micro” level. Many stops, thanks to our guide, were not at the big buildings or the main thoroughfares. Noa had us stopping at small, out of the way locations. Some would have been difficult to find on our own, even with guidance. This post will be about some of our stops in Old Jaffa.

The first photo is the door of Simon the Tanner’s house. Simon appears in the Acts of the Apostles book of the New Testament. He had a house in Jaffa where Saint Peter stayed during his missionary activities of the early Christian faith.

The 2nd photo is the Armenian Convent of St Nicholas. It’s on the waterfront facing the Caribbean Sea. It was built by the Armenian monks and served as a guest house for Armenian pilgrims coming by sea to visit the Holy Land and Christian shrines. In 1799, when Napoleon’s army occupied the city of Jaffa, this place served his plague-stricken soldiers as a hospital and Napoleon himself visited them here.

The 3rd photo is the Jerusalem Gate or Jaffa Gate. It marks one end of the road that led from the ancient port of Jaffa to Jerusalem. The gate, actually a gatehouse, was built in the 1500’s. It has been an entry point into the Old City for western pilgrims for centuries.

The 4th photo shows relatively recent archeological excavations. This was the location of Canaanite Jaffa starting in the 19th century BCE, the Middle Bronze Age. Jaffa’s Canaanite inhabitants lived for nearly 300 years under the rule of an Egyptian garrison. This is one of the monumental gates that dates to the period of rule of Ramesses II.

The last photo is in Abrasha Park. The statue is the ‘Statue of Faith’. It features several biblical scenes including the Binding of Isaac, the Conquest of Jericho, and Jacob’s Ladder. Noa, our guide, is showing a lot of faith that I can capture the moment.

Ilana Goor Museum

Our major stopping point on this morning in Old Jaffa was the Ilana Goor Museum. The museum stands on a hill overlooking Old Jaffa and the port. The museum was founded in 1995 by Ilana Goor, an artist, designer, and sculptor. Ilana Goor also lives in the museum so it’s also her residence.

I’m not much of an art museum buff but I have to say that I found this museum incredibly interesting. It was a terrific visit. The whole museum is more like a wild eclectic collection of the extent of Ilana Goor’s universe. I read that she considers this to be her ‘university’. I enjoyed our visit here.  

To give you an idea, I took the first photo substantially before we visited the museum. At the point of taking this photo, I had no idea that it was a place we would visit. I just found it a fascinating photograph. It’s Ilana Goor’s museum and residence. The museum was three floors of interesting art works.

The 2nd photo will give several clues as to why I liked her works. Much of her work is “functional” art, as in the case of the chairs you see. She also likes to use natural materials such as wood, hides, and bones. I liked that too. It also seemed to me that she has a whimsical side and that suits me as well.

The photo below shows a picture of Ilana Goor. There were many of them in the museum but this one was my favorite of her. If she wasn’t an old hippie, she should have been.

The table in the 4th photo was one of her more complicated works. The sign reads: ‘The Morning After’, done in 2004. I think I was at that party.

The last photo was outside on the third floor. She had some great works out there. Other rooms and collections included art from Old Roman times, African artworks, kitchen artworks, and works by unknown artists. Art works vary by both places and times and there isn’t a sterile looking inch in the entire museum. The whole museum is a work of art.

Jaffa Flea Market

We spent a good part of an afternoon in Old Jaffa at the Jaffa Flea Market, or Shuk Hapishpishim. It wasn’t like our flea markets in California. This market was both indoors and outdoors. It included multiple streets and we wound our way through them. Many of the wares of the building stores spilled out onto the sidewalks and even into the streets with their goods. Goods included everything from furniture makers, Persian rug makers, clothing, junk, bread, plants, record albums, tiles, perfumes, textiles, antiques, jewelry, lamps, and flowers to coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. It had it all including outdoor areas like our own flea market areas back home.

There is no way to capture the flea market in a short post, so I’ll just pick a few of my favorites or some that I found more interesting than others.

The bakery in the first photo was wildly popular. One of our group made a purchase so we managed a sample from here.

The 2nd photo is one of the main streets. You can see rugs on the sidewalk and extending into the street. At other places, the rugs and other goods were right out in the street. At times, it was hard to walk on the sidewalk without stepping on rugs and good for sale.

The 3rd photo is a perfumery. I’ve not seen too many of these, so I included this one.

I do love a good plant store. In this case, it was mostly cut and dried flowers but also plant extracts and many other related products.

We ate lunch in the heart of the flea market at the Puaa Restaurant which appeared to be primarily a local’s place. Vicky had chicken curry and I had a shredded beef sandwich plus lemonade, cheesecake, grapes, and cappuccinos.

Tel Aviv's White City

We are now in Tel Aviv in the White City neighborhood. It has a collection of over 4,000 buildings from the 1930’s in a unique form of the international style known as Bauhaus. It’s from Jewish architects who fled Germany and other European countries after the rise to power by the Nazis. Bauhaus buildings are mostly white with many rounded curves and wide balconies. Of course, many of these buildings have been modified over the years.

 The neighborhood comprises several streets and was quite pleasant. This area was full of café’s, boutiques, art galleries, bars, restaurants, ice cream stores, coffee bars, and much more. It was a very lively area. Perhaps my favorite feature was that the streets were often lined with large shade trees. Another favorite was that the center of the roadway was wide and contained separate paths for bikes and pedestrians, plus benches, coffee stands, children’s play areas, etc.   

The first photo would be considered a classic Bauhaus building.

The 2nd photo is an example of a wine store we passed in this neighborhood.

We saw many older, often rundown, and unoccupied buildings in this area. Our guide said that they were slowly being redone as money became available. I asked how that worked. She said that when a large company wants to build a new building in the area, part of the agreement is to refresh one of the older buildings.

Our guide said that Tel Aviv has more dogs per capita than any city on earth. I know this guy had his hands full. He is walking in the center of the street walkway that I referred to above.

Did I mention to not get in between anyone in our group and an ice cream store?

Contemporary Art

We are starting here in the Neve Tzedek District of Tel Aviv. It’s a picturesque neighborhood that was built in 1887 by the Jews of Jaffa. At that time, it was in the middle of nowhere and comprised two streets. It has narrow streets and lanes, and when built, was built on sand dunes with no vegetation, like much of Tel Aviv.

 Several of our group noticed contemporary art pieces. Noa, our guide, told us that this neighborhood has more contemporary art than most other areas. I liked the art here but I will also include a couple of pieces from Jaffa.

I saw the cats in the first photo as I was coming down the street and hurried to get my camera ready before I lost the picture. I didn’t need to hurry.

I have no explanation for the 2nd photo but then I don’t think it really needs one. The artist had something to say…

The 3rd photo looks like graffiti, right? It is. But Noa told us that graffiti artists are a genuine art group in Tel Aviv and some of the graffiti artists have their own art galleries.

The whale sculpture is in a central location in Old Jaffa. It refers to the biblical book of Jonah and I believe that this was the ‘traditional’ location that Jonah embarked on his fateful encounter with the whale.

The last photo is also in Old Jaffa. It’s right near a location where Napoleon Bonaparte did something, but I was more interested in this, which is my idea of great contemporary art, a free-hanging orange tree.

Tel Aviv Transportation

We arrived in Tel Aviv and promptly came to a screeching halt. The Tel Aviv traffic was terrible. It was a slow ride across town to get to our hotel. The longer we stayed in Tel Aviv, the more I noticed all the alternative vehicles being used. I was not too surprised by this, in view of the traffic, but I was surprised at how many accommodated multiple people, especially children. The variety of the vehicles was also noticeable.

I saw the first vehicle parked here and took this photo. Later, while walking the neighborhood, a woman passed me on this one with one child in front of her and one behind her. She could just as easily have two small children behind her.

You can note that the vehicle below is actually a three-wheeler with two front wheels. They zipped right along on it.

You have to look close but the vehicle below is a four-wheeler and this young woman was riding it right in the street traffic.

This vehicle was my favorite. I’ve never seen an electric scooter with a sidecar before.

The last photo is of a ‘rental’ electric scooter. These were parked all over town and used frequently. I don’t know if they are supposed to carry two people, but they certainly could and did. It’s like our “last mile” program in the States.

Tel Aviv is for Play

On arrival to Tel Aviv, our guide told us that: Haifa is for work; Jerusalem is for prayer; and Tel Aviv is for play. There can be no doubt about Tel Aviv being for play. I suppose we were in a great place to notice this since we were right on the beach at Herods Hotel, but Tel Aviv is a party town. From sunup to bedtime, we saw swimmers, waders, paddle-boarders, wind surfers, volleyballers, paddle games, ball games, sail boats, oared boats, and more. The volleyball lights on the beach stayed on all night long. 

The first photo is from right in front of our hotel. It was late afternoon so not as crowded as it had been.

The wind surfers and the sail boaters were mixing it up.

Volleyball seemed to be a twenty-four hour a day sport.

The wind surfers were tightly bunched in heavy winds.

Oared boats were also popular and we were right next to the Marina.

We managed to get into the water too. The water was warm and shallow until getting far offshore. When in Tel Aviv…