Jaffa and Tel Aviv

We booked our 8 day sightseeing tour with Touring Israel. Our guide Daphne met us a the hotel at 9am and we headed out on our first day to Jaffa. Inhabited in the early Bronza Age, it may be the world's oldest port city. From our guide overview... Jaffa is mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible. It was where King Solomon's ally, Phoenician King Hiram of Tyre, landed cedars of Lebanon for the construction of Solomon's temple, and where the Prophet Jonah embarked on his fabulous adventure with the whale. The Ancient Greeks were here too, as were the Romans. This is also where St. Peter was visited by the angel Gabriel as he slept on the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house. Christian and Jewish pilgrims came through. Jaffa for generations and so did Napoleon in 1799. Today, Jaffa is a mixed Israeli Arab Christian, Arab Muslim and Jewish city and is part of the Tel Aviv - Jaffa municipality. Gentrification is making the city a vibrant and hip place and today it boasts some of Israel’s best galleries, shops, bars & restaurants.

From Jaffa, we headed back into Tel Aviv proper, past the Bauhaus buildings to Sarona, one of eight colonies built by the German Protestant Templers in Palestine towards the end of the 19th century. When the Templers were deported from the land by the British, it became a military base and eventually was given over to the Israelis. The quaint, stone buildings were painstakingly preserved and restored and today Sarona houses boutique stores, artist galleries, quaint cafes, and some of the city’s hottest restaurants and bars. Sarona Market is an upscale covered food market created in the European style, chock-full of delicious, gourmet chef food stands, beer and wine bars, ice cream and dessert parlors, bakeries and some of the best food in Tel Aviv.

We stopped for lunch at Fiori, where the pasta was indeed fresh and delicious.

Then back to The Norman for a drink.

After relaxing back in our room, we took a taxi to dinner at wonderful Yaffo Tel Aviv (or Jaffa Tel Aviv), owned by renowned Israeli chef Haim Cohen and describes itself as a quintessential combination of everything Tel Aviv and Jaffa — with hints of Jerusalem and lots of Europe.