Seeing the sights in Tel Aviv and Jaffa

I recently wrote about my day trip to Jerusalem with my friend during a short vacation. On the next day we took a day trip to see the sights in Tel Aviv and Jaffa. We started off in Jaffa, with a late breakfast at Doctor Shakshuka, generally a great place to enjoy, well, shakshuka.

From there, we made our way towards the Old City of Jaffa. In many respects, this Old City is similar to the Old City of Jerusalem, and well worth visiting.

The walk to the Old City of Jaffa isn’t particularly long, and includes a stroll along the beachfront.

The view from this walkway is pretty spectacular. On the one side, you see Tel Aviv, and on the other, you see part of the Old City peeking out from behind some trees.

We took a casual walk through the Old City, had ice-cream, and took in the view of Tel Aviv from a hill in the middle of the Old City.

From there, we caught a bus to the Tel Aviv Port, one of my favourite places in Tel Aviv.

There are a couple really nice beaches along the waterfront here, along with a number of restaurants and coffee shops.

The tide was pretty high, so there weren’t many bathers in the water. We were also treated to foam splashing over the railings along the boardwalk.

We had some coffee at one of the coffee shops, and then made our way to Ben Gurion House. Now a museum, Ben Gurion House was formerly Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion’s house.

What impressed me most about the house is its simplicity. It’s the sort of house your grandparents may have lived in, with perfectly ordinary furnishings, and decorations. The one exception is Ben Gurion’s really impressive library that takes up most of the upstairs section of the house.

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how seemingly routine photographs of daily life decades ago have taken on an almost magical quality when we look at them now. This has prompted me to look around at scenes of daily life around me, and take a more active interest in photographing it.

If anything, perhaps these photographs will show younger generations more of what life was like in the early 21st century in the not too distant future.

We spent a little time in Sarona Market with its fish ponds before making our way down to the Tel Aviv HaShalom train station, and heading home to Modiin. It was a really nice day out.