Visited: March 8, 2018
Two coworkers and I went to Israel to escape the cold and dark London winter. Here is a quick recap of the trip!
Day 1 - escape the snow!
London can be nice in the winter in that it's less cold than Toronto - however, it can also be dark and dreary and as I found out quite cold at times. In fact at the end of February it was so cold and snowed so much the trains and city of London pretty much shutdown at the end of a 4 days winter storm! It was a minor storm in my book but big for London.
Anyway that week we decided to go somewhere warm and landed on going to Israel. We being myself, Jeff and Dave who are two coworkers. We booked and took off a week later landing in Tel-Aviv late afternoon.
First stop was the airbnb which was a pretty slick apartment in central Tel-Aviv. Tel-Aviv is relatively new as a city, being founded in the early 20th century, yet it's the 2nd most populated city in Israel after Jerusalem. It's a cosmopolitan city with plenty of young vibrant residents, lots of restaurants with a good nightlife and a very nice set of beaches.
We spent most of the first day having some drinks and dinner and going out and about on the town. We did end up in a night market drinking spot and enjoyed the evening with the nice warm air.
Photos: Airport traffic, menorah at the airport and a night venue we snuck in to.
Day 2 - Market & Jaffa
We started the second day pretty slow but had some snacks in the apartment then walked around the Carmel Market which was quite close to us for a little while. It's the largest fruit and veggie market in the city and is packed and full of fun shops and booths filled with all kinds of food, trinkets, sweets and clothes. We didn't really buy that much but did have a nice walk through the market and it gave us a good sense of the area and what people do.
From there we headed off to Jaffa which is a much older town than Tel-Aviv. Jaffa is one of those places that it's tough to pin down when it was really founded. It's an ancient port city at the southern end of Tel-Aviv which may have had inhabitants as far back as 7,500 BCE. Like most spots that old, it's bounced around between different rulers over the almost 10,000 years it may have been around. I'll let you read more about it if you like!
One thing I will say about Jaffa though is it feels much different than Tel-Aviv. Tel-Aviv feels like a city and Jaffa feels like a old town from a long time ago. Even newer developed areas are made to feel old with buildings made in the old style dust coloured hue.
Photos: Carmel Market, walking in Jaffa, tasty lunch, more Jaffa x3
We spent a couple hours there including a lunch at a pretty awesome falafel shop where we had some great hummus, falafels and chips. It was recommended by Jeff's gf who was nice enough to do a bunch of research on where to go in the city.
On the way back we stopped at the market again and I picked up some Turkish Delight which is downright tasty goodness! We also managed to pick up some drinks which we had at the apartment, then we were off to a second night of dinner and drinks.
Photos: Carmel market again including the watch cat. He knows if you're stealing!
Day 3 - Lazy day please
So originally we were going to go to Jerusalem on the second day but switched things up to fit it in the last day pre-return to London as we had a very late flight, hence having seen much of the city and Jaffa we really had a lazy day to cruise around.
Today we walked around Tel-Aviv again, going to a bunch of spots Jeff's gf recommended including another really tasty restaurant and spending part of the day at the beach. I really wish I wrote down the names of the restaurants, but you'll have to guess by the food and menus where they were. If you figure it out I'll buy you lunch.
Photos of a tasty restaurant after a long wait to eat (Jeff was hangry) and some beach!
I will say the beach was pretty barren, maybe because it seems cold to the locals this time of year, but I loved it as it was still 23+ degrees and sunny!
I had an earlier night on Day 3, but the young gents stayed out late again I believe.
Day 4 - Jerusalem
One thing that impresses me about the young kids is their ability to get up and out early even after drinking. I was up around 8 expecting to have to wake them up, but they were ready by 9:30 for our 10:00am pickup for Jerusalem.
We drove with the same hard to understand driver who took us from the airport to the apartment the first day here. I forgot to mention him earlier. He sounded like the Star Wars character Watto. "Hey Ani, you gonna get in that pod racer", but he said other things and talked politics. We steered clear of that conversation.
In any case we got to Jerusalem a little after noon with the intension of staying 3-4 hours. For those of you going, spend at least an entire day in the old city. I don't know if anything else is worth seeing there but the old city is a giant museum full of historic places and stories.
It's almost difficult to start where to talk about the old city. I will leave most of the history to the curious mind, if you'd like to continue to learn about it I suggest diving into the history of the city and the area, it's certainly rich and fascinating.
Like many old cities it has walls. In this case they are well intact and whether that is from restoration or the original walls I'm not sure; there are also quite a few gates. I think we entered in Jaffa gate. In the excitement to get in we really just rushed in the first place we could enter.
A very interesting thing about Jerusalem is that it still has its very traditional quarters, so the city is split up in sections (Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Armenian). Each of the 3 major monotheistic religions have deep ties with the city. Where we entered was around the Tower of David (aka Jerusalem Citadel) and into the Armenian Quarter. I had no idea the Armenians even lived in Jerusalem, but apparently many moved in the 4th century when they adopted Christianity. It's interesting that the other four quarters are based on religion whereas this one is based on an ethnic background. Apparently the Armenians were persecuted per some signs in the quarter but I don't know that part of history.
From there we went directly to the Western (or Wailing) Wall. Our hope was to go up Temple Mount, where Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and its small neighbour Dome of the Chain sit. The mount is very significant for the Muslims (3rd most holy) because Muhammed ascended to heaven from the mount. For the Jewish it's very significant because the 1st (Soloman's) and 2nd (Herod's) temples were built there. A 3rd and final temple is supposed to be built there too. And!!! In addition this is where the Holy of Holies is said to be which is believed to be where God's presence appeared and the Ark of the Covenant rested (or still rests?). Anyway too much history and religion to cover here, but the Jews won't even go up the mount because they don't want to tread near the Holy of Holies hence it's mostly Muslims, Christians and tourists who go up. Yikes! so hence why you know it's very well famous and the big gold dome helps a lot in photos.
Photos of history. Jewish Quarter, Dome of the Rock, Wailing wall
Even though we didn't go up the mount we did go to the wailing wall. Jeff rolled right in, Dave and I had to pickup a yarmulke/kippah. I touched the wall and made a prayer. There are some very, very devout Jewish praying men there. Of note the women and men have different sides they go to.
The real interesting spot though is to the left as you walk towards the wall. You can go in a covered part which houses a library of religious books and many, many Hasidic Jews praying very passionately. It really is inspiring to see. I didn't want to take photos or video in there but I did find a video online.
Wow! That was intense and very amazing to see. I think this whole city should be a lesson on how the religions can get along although there was a bit of tension when we were there so we could not enter the Muslim area - it was guarded by Israeli police. Most of the old city in fact was guarded by the Israeli army.
From the western wall we headed into the old city and wandered the streets which were both residential and seemingly endless markets.
Photos of seemingly endless markets.
We ended up at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Don't ask me to pronounce that. It was very cool going in. First off it looks like an average building on the outside, but inside it's almost like a Tardis for churches. It's much bigger inside than it looks and it's very, very Eastern Christian. This church contains it's said the two holiest sites for Christians. Where Jesus was crucified and empty tomb where he is said to have been buried and resurrected.
Inside the church - we must have spent an hour in there which was not enough!
I'm exhausted writing about this, I could have spent a week in Jerusalem aside from all the tourists and overpriced restaurants - one of which we went to.
From the Church it was on to The Tower of David. This is named as such because the site is thought to be where the palace of David was. It's really a small fort (in ruins) which was one of the defensive points of the city. It was interesting but less so than the other parts of the city we saw.
Photos: The Tower of David and a model of the layout of the old city.
After the tower we had to run back and find Watto as we were already behind schedule. He took us back to the airport talking about more politics (which is interesting but a one side view) where after a pretty long grilling the airport security let us on the plane and we left!
We flew back to Luton at 1:30AM. Don't do this it's not worth it.
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