Everyone will tell you that Tel Aviv has a completely different feel to Jerusalem – but it’s hard to know just how different it is until you spend time in both cities. Where Jerusalem has religion and history so in your face, Tel Aviv breathes freedom and the future. They couldn’t be more different. As much as we loved our time in Jerusalem, the vibe we got from our short stay in Tel Aviv was that this was a great place to live and work.
The city is lined on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, with lovely beaches just a short bike ride from the office – cooling down or freshening up after a day at work must be an attractive option. Or perhaps like us, people can’t be bothered with the hassle of changing and sand and showering etc… so opt instead for sunset walks and talks along the seemingly endless boulevard.
Our friends Simon and Nagisa had moved to a house-sit in Tel Aviv and we were able to stay with them there for our few days in Tel Aviv. They were looking after Olive, a sweet but untrained kitten. It was great to relax with friends again and enjoy meals and time together. So good.
The apartment was in walking distance from Jaffa Port – which has been in almost continuous operation for the past 4000 years! The Old Jaffa area had a really nice feel about it, with the sea, boats around and lots of pedestrian-only areas. There were narrow little streets with arty shops and down by the waterfront bold street art greeted us.
We visited St Peters Church, where inside they had Taizé music playing. It was in Jaffa that Peter raised one of Jesus’ followers Tabitha from the dead (Acts 9-10) so the church is dedicated to him. When we were there my favourite Taizé song played – just lovely. Opposite the church is a green area with nice views over the city and out to sea.
Down the hill we came to a shopping area with the Ottoman era Clock Tower, a mosque and the Jaffa flea market.
Antony needed to do some work and I needed to do some trip planning so on our second day in Tel Aviv we headed into the city to a public library to use the wifi and focus on getting stuff done without kitten distraction or noisy construction going on outside. The library was pretty old and perhaps undergoing some refurbishment as the entrance was very small and unmarked. We got some work done in the morning then headed out to eat our tomato sandwiches for lunch and go for a walk. Antony wanted to see a ‘We Work’ set up so had made an appointment for a tour. It was about 25min walk from the library through quite busy, CBD type area.
There are a number of ‘We Work’ spaces in Tel Aviv. The one we went to had several floors, all identical, in a rather fancy office building with trees and plants and comfy seats in the foyer. The vibe in the lift on the way up was not your boring old suit and tie business folk, but more heavy metal t shirts, young, relaxed, professionals with accompanying e-scooters etc. Someone from the community team at We Work explained the ‘We Work’ concept, showed us some office types and answered Antony’s questions. They have a common area where people eat lunch, get coffees etc and again everyone seemed quite young. A good place for networking no doubt.
We headed back to the library for the afternoon then home to Olive the kitten. Si & Nagisa had taken the chance to get away for the night camping down in the Negev Desert.
After a work day we were more than ready for something active the next day so we hired bikes for 2 hours and made the most of them biking all over the city’s bike lanes. We headed up along the coast for some time, past the Tel Aviv Port until we got to a small airport, then backtracked and turned off into the city’s main park.
It is so great that we could ride almost continually for 2 hours without being in traffic – so many great bike lanes along the coast, past shops and restaurants, through parks etc. We had a stop in Yarkon Park when Antony got a work call- but otherwise we rode pretty solidly and just loved it!
The Park was huge and had all sorts going on. There was an outdoor fitness centre which was well utilised when we biked past and just after that a big rock climbing wall. The path we were on had lanes for bikes/ e-scooters and separate lanes for pedestrians. We followed the path along the river to a lake then back down the other side of the river. It was great to see lots of mums chilling out in the shade with their babies, a guy sitting under a tree reading and a good mix of people relaxing, biking, scootering and walking – everyone enjoying the green space in the middle of the city.
Before returning the bikes, Antony wanted to go fast so he tore off, overtook e-bikes and went for a bit of a sprint along the bike lanes by the beach. I did not attempt to keep up!
After returning the bikes and satisfying our hunger we walked down Rothschild Boulevard toward the Neve Tzedek area. We came across a really detailed mosaic monument/ fountain that conveyed scenes from the Bible that were connected to Jaffa as well as scenes portraying Tel Aviv’s early days. It was created by Israeli sculptor and artist Nachum Gutman and installed elsewhere in the city in 1976, moving to its current location in 2012.
Neve Tzedek was an interesting suburb with much lower buidings, cool arty streets, design stores and handicraft shops. We had the most delicious icecream there and got chatting with a nice Canadian woman who was resting while her friends visited some shops.
We walked along the beach – stopping to watch the sun go down – then walked back through Old Jaffa to the apartment.
We could have happily stayed longer in Tel Aviv but the desert was calling!