DAY 7 : THURSDAY 21 JANUARY - LAST DAY IN TEL AVIV

We took a last wander to the beach where the winds had made some difference to the seafront we sat at on Saturday morning
  

And a last trip down to pretty Jaffa

including some artwork which we spotted...

DAY 6 : WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY - TEL AVIV SIGHTS AND MUSEUMS

A last full day in Tel Aviv and time for some architecture and culture. The city was founded in 1909 by affluent inhabitants of Jaffa, developing under the era of British rule in Palestine (1917-48). Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 and developed rapidly under the British Mandate in Palestine. The area of the so-called White City (again, UNESCO Heritage listed) forms its central part.

 

The main Art Gallery 

has a superb collection of Impressionist works, and also an interactive area...

On the way back, we passed Rabin Square, site of political rallies and parades and, on 4 November, assassination of the Prime Minister, after whom it was later named.  The memorial to him stands in the same spot with City Hall is in the background.

and were half-tempted by some sesame halva

DAY 5 : TUESDAY 19 JANUARY - OVERNIGHT OUTING, ACRE

The rain meant that the gardens were closed (no chance of the view from the central terrace across the bay towards Acre...) 

But the UNESCO site itself beckoned

"Akka" is recorded in Egyptian sources in abour 2000BC, one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the Middle East, from earlier than 3000BC.  It's undergone a few lives, one assumes; the present city walls date from 1750 when the then-ruler reused the remnants of the existing Crusader walls as his foundations  

and set the Sea Gate and Land Gate into them

The sea theme looks to have inspired people...

and the city is altogether atmospheric

 
even if the weather took a turn for the worse. What the below doesn't tell you is that Duncan missed the worst of a huge wave over the sea-wall and I was laughing so hard that I missed the snap... 

And to those of you who didn't believe we'd tracked down the best hummus lunches in the country...

DAY 4 : MONDAY 18 JANUARY - OVERNIGHT OUTING, CAESAREA AND HAIFA

Tel Aviv is very nice but there's only so much to do. So we'd hired a car for an overnight trip north along the coast towards the port city of Haifa, via Caesarea, a city built upon Sidonese (ie Lebanese, the border with Lebanon is not far north of Haifa) ruins by the Romans, specifically by King Herod, who named it in honour of Caesar Augustus.

Sadly the weather was taking a turn for the worse, windy more than wet but it certainly justified those coats...

...as Saturday's sparkling blue Sea was whooshing and sloshing about in a most unMediterranean-like manner

but, after the amphitheatre, we mosied damply around the forum, baths, hippodrome

to the mighty walls and gate of the city.

From there we high-tailed it north to Haifa where christmas was still in full swing! 

The gold-domed building on the hill is the Shrine of the Báb, standing in gardens which were given World Heritage Status in 2008, HQ of the Bahá’í Faith and a pilgrimage site. Hopefully we'll see them in daylight tomorrow.

DAY 3 : SUNDAY 17 JANUARY - DAY-TRIP TO JERUSALEM

Sunday's breakfast went down well. A middle-eastern speciality - shakshuka

And from the bus station, a 30 shekel (c£5.40) round-trip to Jerusalem.

We cabbed it (with a very chirpy driver, who pointed out the Knesset, the Prime Minister's office on Gaza Street - cue laughter) who dropped us, surprisingly close to open countryside

at the entrance to the old city and the Western Wall...

Access to the Wall is divided into a women's and men's side 

and the tunnel of the right-hand side leads into Temple Mount, a walled area inside the Old City containing the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.  The Mount's significance for Jews and Muslims arises from the heart of the Rock being the "Foundation Stone". Jews traditionally regard it as the holiest spot on Earth; some Islamic scholars believe that the rock is the spot from which Mohammed ascended to heaven.

The silver-domed Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. The earliest building was a small prayer house, completely destroyed by an earthquake in 746AD, as were several successors. The present day mosque dates from 1035. 

 

Apparently "Jerusalem's most recognizable landmark" is the 7th-century blue-tiled octagonal Dome of the Rock. The oldest existing Islamic monument, it's a masterpiece of Byzantine architecture; the dome was most recently re-covered in 1993 with 80kg of gold (King Hussein of Jordan reputedly sold one of his London houses to raise the necessary US$8.2m). 

Visitors for the "afternoon slot" only get an hour on the Mount and so it wasn't long before we exited via the Bani Ghanim Gate at the north-western corner

and joined the Via Dolorosa, Path of Sorrows, with the fourteen Stations of the Cross on the route which Christ is said to have walked

The Via itself has unsurprisingly become more commercial than devout!

The last few stations are contained within the beautiful Church of the Holy Sepulcre.

including the fourteenth station, the tomb where the pious weep and prostrate themselves

Especially lovely is a chapel below ground : Golgotha, believed to be the site of the crucifixion

And, out into the sunshine again, we found the walls

and a super-sleek tram back to the bus-station home