My most recent trip to Israel overlapped with the August holidays there and in Europe, and there literally was not a hotel room available up and down the coast for a three week period. Anecdotal news was that hotels were so overbooked that people were being put on buses and shuttled to Jerusalem where some hotels still had rooms. People were also complaining that half of France was there, and their recent flood of investment in real estate was driving up prices significantly. I ended up staying at the Sheraton City Tower in Ramat Gan, which is north west of Tel Aviv proper and 3-4 miles from the coast, which made for a very different experience (view from my room at above).
It is much closer to the business center of the city, and with that the number of restaurants and things to see were very limited, and everything had to be done by taxi.
With that - I intended to try see some different areas than I had previously. I was traveling with a colleague for this trip, and we also had the fortune of overlapping the last couple of days of our visit with a friend/colleague from San Francisco who was visiting with her husband for a family wedding.
Over the first couple of days many of our meetings were north of Tel Aviv, from Herzliya and Netanya, which are the next coastal towns up, to Yokneam Illit and
Zichron Yaakov,which is a great little town at the top of a hill overlooking the sea in one direction and the Carmel Mountains in the other. The Carmel-Mizrahi and Tishbi wineries are also located in this gentrified coffee shop and art studio focused town that is largely wifi covered - and our meeting here was outdoors at one of the coffee shops.
Herzliya is a city of about 100,000, and home to a number of Israeli technology companies and divisions/branches of other multinationals. It is also an emerging holiday town as well because of its scenic port and the more modern hotels that have been established there on the beach. We were given a recommendation for a fish restaurant (restaurants are primarily catigorised as meat or dairy for kosher purposes, but fish seems to be a third referenced type) called Al haMaim, meaning 'on the water'... and it was -- here is the view from the bar area below our table on the terrace (above).
We also had a couple of meetings in Jerusalem again, and when a third had to reschedule we took advantage of the afternoon there to explore
Mount of Olives / Mount Olivet, which is the hill across from the Old City and a place where several important biblical events occurred. and home to the gardens that mark where Jesus stayed for an extended time, a Russian built church for Maria Magdalene, and the Jewish cemetery where it is believed that God will first begin redeeming the dead at the 'end of days'. It is also the site of a significant sunburn received by a pale guy now living in London...
At the top of the hill we came upon an area with a couple of houses and a cleared out area where a guy reading a religious text was sitting near some stone steps near an outcropping that lead down to a 'cave' . He told us that it was the Tomb of the Prophets - built in the 1st century BC, and instructed/invited us to light a candle and explore - which was really a unique experience. We went down the steps where the temperature dropped significantly from the outside
(which was welcomed) to the point where we could see our breath in the one shaft of light that came from the ceiling. It was absolutely pitch black in many areas of the different tunnels and 30+ old tombs that had been carved in to the rock (photos to come for this) - we were the only ones down there - and while it did feel like a religous setting, it also felt like we were in a Raiders of the Lost Ark sequel as we went deeper in to the dark areas with just the two candles.
From here we retraced our steps down to where our driver Michal was waiting and headed back to Tel Aviv, with a stop in Abu Gosh which is an Arabic town in between the two cities known to be home to what is possibly the best hummus restaurant in Israel... it was my second visit there, and really does live up to its reputation (we ate a late lunch and over-ordered hummus, salads, falafel, and kebabs ... ate it all anyway, and then were unable to rally for dinner later as a result).
Our last great experience of this trip was with our friends who were over for the aforementioned family wedding. We were invited to the engaged couple's henna party - which is a pre wedding celebration for family and close friends with much food, music/dancing, and the henna celebration where the couple is blessed and gifts of gold / dowry are given (we brought champagne).
To get there we took a train an hour and a half north of Tel Aviv to Tirat Carmel near Haifa, and then a taxi to the celebration. It was much smaller than we anticipated (read as: we stuck out much more) - and was very fun to see and experience. The food was great, as was the band, and both families were very welcoming. I had a couple of movies on my camera that I was very excited to post - but both were lost for some reason when I tried to download them - which is really unfortunate. This photo will have to suffice:
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