Israel – Part 1 – Tel Aviv
A week in Israel 20-27.12.2009 – Part 1 – Tel Aviv
Из “Разходка по Светите места”
TRAVEL ROUTE:
- Tel Aviv ( 3 nights from 20-23.12.09 ) – Travelogue for TEL AVIV HERE
- The Tel Aviv – Jerusalem distance by train
- Jerusalem ( 4 nights from 23-27.12.09 )- Travelogue for Jerusalem HERE
What is it like to ride a motorboat, walk through the narrow streets of Jaffa, go to a Jewish toilet, and admire the beautiful sea, sunset, and nature – these are just some of the things we experienced during our trip to the Holy Places.
Expenses: Total around 3000 leva for two, of which 1380 leva were only the plane tickets with Bulgaria Air. Viewed from today's date, this is a lot of money just for plane tickets and to this destination. Nowadays, you can quite easily find offers for about 200 leva / person round trip. I explain it to myself in the following way: First, we traveled right during the Christmas holidays, which inevitably means much higher prices than normal. And second, only a little after our trip, Israel became a popular vacation destination among Bulgarians.
Our plane took off from Terminal 2, Sofia Airport to Tel Aviv with Bulgaria Air at 17:20. Both the outbound and return flights with Bulgarian Air were quite decent, even pleasant I would say.
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We arrived in Tel Aviv around 8 PM local time. We had previously arranged to rent a car, but things got complicated since we didn't have a credit card, so we had to take a taxi from the airport to our accommodation. We stayed at Yarden Apartments at 130 Ben Yehuda Street. We booked it through Agoda. Our apartment consisted of a bedroom, bathroom, toilet, and a fully equipped kitchen with a large balcony. It was modernly furnished, but the hygiene (as it turned out, and in all of Israel) was not up to par. Our apartment was in a very good location – about 5 minutes from the beach and the city's marina. Tel Aviv is considered the economic capital of Israel and features many modern buildings and skyscrapers.
The next few photos are from the Old Town of Jaffa.
The green areas are well-maintained and beautifully landscaped. Also, Tel Aviv has a wonderful beach strip with all kinds of amenities and places just to sit and enjoy the sea. And also huge toilets 🙂 There, back in distant 2009, I saw a free outdoor gym for the first time. The area around the river passing through the city is also a very nice place for a walk – there is a huge park, a free open-air zoo.
The weather inDecember in Tel Aviv was around 20-25 degrees during the day, while mornings and evenings were a bit cooler. There were no beachgoers, but it was warm enough for short sleeves. Only two things left a bad impression on me. The first was the low level of hygiene. The storefronts of most shops and restaurants, for example, hadn't been washed in a long time. The second thing was the complete lack of restaurants in the true sense of the word. Most shops were cluttered with goods and looked more like a "Dollar Store" type than boutique shops. The people in Tel Aviv looked very relaxed. Also, people there didn't seem very involved with any religion; there were very few Muslims, and Jews only wore their characteristic small caps – yarmulkes, and nothing else.
Traffic was moderate, with no traffic jams.
On the first day (21.12), as Simeon and I were walking around the yacht port, we felt like getting on a motorboat. We wanted to pamper ourselves a bit 🙂 It cost us 100 dollars for one hour!!!
They even allowed us to steer ourselves.
After that, we went for a walk to the industrial center or the so-called skyscrapers and to the river. We got around on foot.
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I would like to open a small bracket. On this our first trip together, we hadn't prepared for anything. We had zero expectations. We went to a new, unfamiliar place and knew nothing about it. We hadn't read beforehand where anything was located, what sights there were, and similar information that would have been useful if we had taken an interest earlier, so as not to fall victim to the tradition called Shabbat and miss going to the Dead Sea due to a closed bus station. But more on that in the next article 🙂
On the next day (22.12) we went to the Old Town of Tel Aviv, which is called Jaffa. This is actually one of the oldest ports in the world. It can be easily reached by walking along the nicely made waterfront promenade. We only found 2-3 normal restaurants there. The buildings, constructed from light beige to white limestone, and the narrow streets through which it is impossible for a car to pass, made Jaffa a truly very pleasant little place. The city of Jaffa has also appeared in the Bible, as it is precisely from there that the prophet Jonah's flight begins. Also, the city was visited by Apostle Peter.
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You can see more photos from Tel Aviv, for which there wasn't enough space, below:
