Tel Aviv

Today we headed to Tel Aviv. The city is a mixture of 'the old and the new' and that is precisely what Tel Aviv translates as.  The tour took us to Independence Hall, the house where David Ben Gurion proclaimed the independent State of Israel on May the 14th, 1948. We then went to the Palmach Museum where we had a guided tour. The Palmach was the strike force of the Haganah, the pre-state underground defence organisation that was incorporated into the Israeli Defence Force after 1948. In between these two museums we had time to walk around Tel Aviv and the Old City of Jaffa at our own leisure.

The following photos are of Tel Aviv city. It is a very cosmopolitan city. The beachfront was absolutely beautiful but as you can see from the street shots there were also many less than picturesque areas of the city.

These photos are of the Old City of Jaffa.

Friends and I went into a shop to buy silk necklaces, a local Israeli craft, and the lady that served us told us that everyone who made a purchase got a free red bracelet that will bring good luck. We thought 'great' and allowed her to put them on our wrists. After we had walked around and had lunch we returned to our tour bus and were promptly told to remove them by our tour guide because they were actually a symbol of being 'pro-Palestinian' and we might find ourselves in strife.

Below is the offending bracelet. I quickly put it back on in the bus to take this photo.

There is so much to do in Tel Aviv and we really only got to see a tiny portion of it on this whirlwind trip. It was an enjoyable day!