Tel Aviv, Israel

Tel Aviv, תֵּל־אָבִיב, is the second largest city in Israel.  The city has a population of 414,600 but the metropolitan area is home to over 3.46 million people.  Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on the outskirts of Jaffa.  While Jerusalem is the country's capital, this is not recognized internationally so Tel Aviv is home to all of the foreign embassies.

View of Tel Aviv from Jaffa

Tel Aviv sits on the Mediterranean.  It enjoys 14 km (8.7 miles) of beautiful coastline.





Getting around the city is pretty easy.  The street signs are all in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

Armed soldiers on Rothschild Blvd

Rothschild Boulevard is a 1.5 km long residential boulevard.  It's lined with great cafes, restaurants and some interesting architecture.



The Levine House was designed in 1924 in the Eclectic style.  In the 1950s it served as the Soviet Embassy.

Many German Jewish architects fled Germany are brought the Bauhaus style to Tel Aviv in the 1920s and 1930s.  With more than 5,000 Modernist-style buildings in the city, the city became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

The Carmel Market is the city's largest food and vegetable market.  You can also find there anything else you could possibly want to buy.  Very crowded but fun. 




The Great Synagogue was completed in 1926.  It was renovated in 1970.




The large square in front of city hall is named after Yitzhak Rabin where the Nobel Peace prize winning prime minister was assassinated.  The large sculpture commemorates those who perished in the Holocaust.

As Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath there were very few people out and about in the morning.  It's a great time to get out and explore the city.  It was a little creepy at first; kind of like one of those zombie movies where all the people have vanished.  And we were pretty sure that it had nothing to do with Friday's rocket attacks.  Eventually we found everyone.  They were all having a great time on the beach.