Janna's Jerusalem Journies: Romantic get away in Tel Aviv

Many of our friends in Jerusalem often go to Tel Aviv, for either a day or overnight. We had been meaning to get there much sooner, but it just never happened. People say that when you go to Tel Aviv, it's like a different country than the rest of Israel, and the difference between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv is like night and day. Tel Aviv is much more laid back; fewer religious people live there so tension isn't as prominent. I have told you about this before, I think, Jerusalem is a city filled with high tension between different groups of people and it is definitely felt. So part of the reason people go to Tel Aviv a lot is just to get away from Jerusalem.

Besides our trips to Caesarea and Masada, we hadn't been outside of Jerusalem (well we went to Bethlehem when we first got here, but that doesn't count, it isn't less stressful there!). We decided we needed a relaxing night away from everything in Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv is a very accessible city from Jerusalem, there are many cheap options to get there. We took a sherut (a small bus/van taxi) from the city center in Jerusalem to the central bus station in Tel Aviv. If it's not a holiday or Shabbat, it's only 24 shekels per person (about 7$). If it is a holiday or Shabbat, it's 35 shekels (about 10$). So that's not too bad for an hour drive to Tel Aviv. I think it's a little bit cheaper to take the bus, but then you have to deal with schedules. What's nice about the sherut is there are always 3 or 4 lined up, and they leave as soon as they fill up. You may have to wait a few minutes, but they fill up quite quickly, so you really can leave anytime you want.

Once we got to the central bus station we took a mini sherut to our hotel. There are two mini sherut lines that go up the main streets, and our hotel was just off one of the main streets so it worked well. It was only 6 shekels per person (7 on Shabbat, I learned that one the hard way). The driver misunderstood me and overshot our stop by 3 or 4 blocks, so we had to walk a bit but it wasn't too bad.

Tel Aviv is an expensive city, but I managed to find a hotel on the beach for just under 100$ for two people for one night, so we booked it. It even had decent reviews. Well I must not have been looking closely enough because it was a dive. It was dirty and extremely tiny. Our windows weren't glass. They were just plastic shades, and we had a lovely view of a trashy over grown court yard between run down buildings. Awesome. So that wasn't a good start to our weekend.

We had planned on going to the beach in the afternoon and then to dinner for the first day. The second day we would explore the city and then head home. We managed to get over the hotel situation and headed to the beach. The beach was about 3 long blocks away, hardly "sea side" (which was the name of the hotel).

Tel Aviv is always about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than Jerusalem, but it had been hot in Jerusalem when we left. Tel Aviv had a heat wave that day (around 100 degrees in mid March) and there happened to be a marathon going on, so the beach was PACKED. We walked forever just to find a spot to sit. It was horrible. There were mobs and mobs of people. Some random kid stole something from someone, so he was running all over the place and this giant mob was running after him, I got pushed out of the way pretty hard. It just sucked. So finally we found a spot and people watched for a while. I noticed that the beach was probably 95% 15 and 16 year olds, so that added to the horror. There wasn't really any wind, so there really weren't any waves and wave breakers stopped any chance of small waves. But that's what I love about the beach! The waves! We got in the water anyways. IT WAS FREEZING. And not the kind of freezing that you can get used to. We got in to about our thighs and stood there a while before deciding not to go further. So we didn't even get to swim. We sat in the sand a little longer then decided to walk to Old Jaffa city, just down the beach.

Two strikes already for Tel Aviv! This was not the romantic relaxing weekend we were looking forward to! We showered the sand off at the hotel and headed down the coast to Jaffa.

Things started looking up, we had a nice walk. It was fun to people watch and nice to be on the coast. Old Jaffa was an ancient port city and was mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible (according to wikipedia). In the books of Joshua, 2 Chronicles, Jonah, and Ezra. It was also mentioned in the New Testament in Acts. Simon the Tanner also lived there, and we even saw his house!

We wandered around the narrow winding streets of Jaffa and in the gardens and courtyards. It was very pretty and quaint and things were finally starting to feel relaxed. We walked back along the coast, and by this time it was evening and dark, but there were still a ton of people grilling and hanging out a long the beach.

We had quite a few dinner recommendations from friends so we headed to the area those were in. We came upon a Mexican place, a non kosher Mexican place, and decided to stop there. We were a little unsure because Germany doesn't have a clue what Mexican food is and we didn't want to be let down again. But Veronica had mentioned that they had Mexican in Tel Aviv and it was pretty good so we went for it. It was good! They don't bring out free chips and salsa, unfortunately, but that wasn't very surprising. It was even a decent price for Tel Aviv. So yay, the whole weekend wasn't a bust!

After dinner we stopped at a little store for bottled water for the next day, and there may have been Milka chocolate involved. Maybe a lot, because to our surprise, it was buy one get one free! Hooray!

The next morning we slept in a little before hitting up the (lame) free breakfast buffet at the hotel. Then we headed off to walk around the city. Tel Aviv really isn't that big so we were able to hit all the main areas fairly quickly. We had a tourist map from the hotel with all the main streets highlighted in red, so we just followed those until it connected back to our hotel.

The weather was absolutely perfect! It was hot the day before, but it cooled down to a very comfortable temperature, perfect for a leisurely Saturday walk. It was Shabbat so everything was closed and streets were very quiet. It would have been great to see everything open with all the cafes and boutiques, but it was ok because we just wanted to walk around anyways, and the quiet was welcomed.

We covered the Carmel Market, Rothschild Boulevard and everything around and in between. The Carmel Market is similar to Jerusalem's shuk, but again we didn't get to see it up and running. Rothschild Boulevard is one of Tel Aviv's most expensive streets. Israel's declaration of Independence was signed at Independence Hall on Rothschild Blvd. It holds many historic buildings, most of which were built in the Bauhaus style. It is also the center of Tel Aviv's financial district, so you can see why it's so touristy. The street is wide with tall trees and large pedestrian and bike lanes.

We made the rounds and saw a lot of the city. Tel Aviv does have a different more relaxed feel than Jerusalem, but it wasn't the relaxing romantic weekend we were hoping for! Nevertheless it's a cool city and we'll definitely go back (we just won't stay over night!).