ni hao, it's nika on tour: 2016-05-22

Ten days of non stop travelling, exploring and resting! That were great holidays wih my lovely mom who came to visit me from Germany. We spent 3 days in Tel Aviv / Jaffo, one whole day in Jerusalem, 2 days in the south, 3 days in the north and one day on the beach in Herzliya. If you are interested, you can click on the links of the places I am writing about. We rent an appartement in Jaffa, the old city of Tel Aviv that we shared with the owner - a very kind Surfer and his dog. We walked around all my favourite places and I showed my mom the variety of routes though the city that I like. For example after taking a bath in the refreshing sea at the jaffa beach, we explored the old city of Jaffa with the art quarter and the port first and then made our way along the beach promenade where we turned right to "Florentin" the street art quarter where we found a nice new urban gallery, then we continued straight and entered the quarter "Neve Tzedek" that is full beautiful colors in my opinion. We stopped for an ice cream at "Anita" that is very tasty and after that came to the Rotschild Boulevard what is the centre of TLV. Walking a small peace of it we turned left to one of my favourite streets "Nahalat Binyamin" where usually on Tuesdays and Fridays are art markets. This street is filled with beautiful violet trees and cozy cafés that are perfect for sitting and watching people passing by. We made our break at the beautiful "The Prince" that is a cafe on a roof terrace and has amazing small meals at the times of business lunch from 5-8pm where you pay 40 Shekels (about 9 euros) together with a drink that can be alcoholic as well. We took fish meals and cold white wine and relaxed at the edge of the roof and looked down on the people. After tanking the energy we walked down the street and turned left on the Allenby Street where we walked all the way down to the beach and bought some nuts and whine on our way that we enjoyed close to the water watching the beautiful sunset. Later that night we went to one of the bars at the beach side where they had a Salsa night and I danced non stop. The other day we did anther route that goes just along the beach promenade from the Jaffo beaches where we saw some military planes making a beautiful show as we thought due to the victory day against the Nazis in the second world war. They did rounds above the Sea and above the high buildings in the city, very symmetric and beautiful. We went all the way up to the port. This area is a very shic and accurate area imitating the European standards with nice parks, a beautiful view on the sea and clean beaches surrounded by all the the 5 star hotels such as Sheraton and Hilton. We ate some fresh white fish with white wine at one the port restaurants and lied down on one of the little beaches. We were really relaxed and enjoyed the sun for about one hour after what we head inside the city through the nice Gordon Street to go to a car rental where we booked a car online, what was way cheaper than in the shop! We cleared up things for the other day and enjoyed the afternoon walking through streets my mom didn't see yet, such as a way from the Allenby left on Sheinkin, down the shopping toad and the whole Rotschild Boulevard to the end, where stopped for a coffee at the nice "Rotschild 12" and walked down to Jaffa through Neve Tzedek and Florentin by night. We bought wine and snacks and enjoyed the beautiful view of "The white city" from the top of the mountain in the old city.

The next day we took a bus to Jerusalem quite early as we planned to spend a whole day over there, and there is a lot to see. More tha beautiful, Jerusalem is a spiritual centre, holy to the three great monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianiy and Islam.

That three religions have assigned so much importance to a solitary city makes Jerusalem of the most fascinationg places I've ever visited. Within a short walk of each other, one can find Christians quietly praying in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jews dancing by the Western Wall and Muslims prostrate before Al-Aqsa Mosque. Whatever one credence, it's hard not to be swept up in the emotional tide that pulsates through these ancient streets.

The Old City is surrounded by relics of ancient and modern times. To the south lies the City of David (the original Jebusite city). Predominately Palestinian East Jerusalem is home to consulates, museums and the Garden Tomb (possible crucifixion site), while West Jerusalem hast the Israeli capital building and patchwork of secular and religious neighbourhoods.

Jerusalem, or Al-Quds as its known in Arabic, has an inevitably powerful effect on its visitors, breeding political activism, religious fanaticism or simply a greater appreciation of the magnificent tide of human history. Aquick run through the main tourist sights won't do it justice, so we planned to stay a while, and see what it does to us.

It took us about 1,5 hours to get to the old city where we started at the Damascus Gate and saw a few stops of the "Via Dolorosa" (way of Sorrows), which is is a street within the Old City Of Jerusalem held to be the path that Jesus walked on the way to his crusifixion carriying his cross to Calvary. The sixth station of the via is "Veronica" and as it's my full name we walked to the place where the name is written on the door of the woman who gave Jesus a white cotton veil to wipe off his sweat and blood on his face.

Since than she had the "real image/icon" of Jesus on her veil -> "Vera iconica". Veronica! That's how my name came up!

We did a break on the square in the centre, where we had some arabic coffee and humus with falafel balls. We walked through the lively, smelly, cheap and various arabic market where I had some fresh juice .
From there we walked to the Jewish quarter. Where we reached the western wall, "Kotel". After that we walked up to the Mount of Olives but took a taxi on the half way and enjoyed the view of Jerusalem. We walked down by feet and took fast looks at the Church of all Nations and the Russian Orthodox Church, which is beatuiful especially from outside, before they closed. We took a bus to the new centre of Jerusalem and even changed to the tram what was a very modern contrast after the old city in my opinion. We walked around the famous Mahane Yehuda Shuk (market) where we bought fruits, vegetables and halva and walked around the Ben Yehuda Street a little bit until we had to stop moving at 8pm as a special serene went of where all the people stop for 1-2 minutes of silence as a memorial to the fallen soldiers in all the wars. I already experienced it once a the memorial day of holocaust. The people even stop in the middle of the highway to go out of the car and give a minute of silence. It's a very touching moment as the sirens mean sad memories of the country. We were tired and it was freezing windy so we took the bus back home and just fell in our beds. The next day we took a car, bought food like fruits, veggies, water and wine and drove down to the National Park En Gedi in the south. It was very refreshing and just a nice easy hike with waterfalls and a great view of the dead sea. Stopping on the way there to enjoy nature view we couldn't wait any longer and drive further south to En Boqeq, where the have good public beaches close to luxury hotels where we found a quite relaxed place and made ourselves feel like in a spa. The dead sea makes you feel weightless, heels diseases, softens the skin and the hair and fills you up with positive energy. After sitting in a café we made our way to Masada, what was a bit more up again, where we booked a night at the very recommendable Hi Massada Hostel and enjoyed our dinner put of snacks and wine underneath the seemingly touchable stars at our huge terrasse. We woke up at 4.30 in the morning to hike up the Massada mountain in a cool air to enjoy the breathtaking view from upstairs and see the sunrise at 6 am.
It was worth it to climb hard around one hour to get very hungry going all the way down again to have breakfast for one hour because it was so great. We packed our things and drove down to the national park En Avedat but stopped at the dead sea on our way again, to sleep for 1 hour at least as we were tired from hiking at 5 am indeed. En Avedat was beautiful too, I really loved the environment and the nature there. After that we drove even more south for 30min and arrived to the famous Makhtesh Ramon crater where we decided not to hike anymore as it was too late and we were extremely tired. It is a stunning view of the crater that we enjoyed on some rocks at the view point drinking coffee until the sun goes down. Finally we drove all the way back up to my flat in Petah Tikwa where we stayed over night. Next day on Friday we head off to the north in Haifa but stopped by the little symphatic town En Hod that developed into an art village that disappointed me a bit. I expected a more bohemian athmosphere over there and more authentic artists and their houses. Anyways we didn't regret that we stopped there, as it was a quite and pleasant start of the day. We returned the car in a Haifa and then walked around the German colony a bit, where we had some code with desserts before we took the train down to Hadera where some old friends of my grandma live and invited us to a dinner and one stay with them for 2 nights. I was very happy to be hosted by them as they were really friendly and took us by car to walk around Caesarea by night what I really enjoyed.

We had a lot of fun walking around the excavations that were lightened up very nicely and enjoyed a romantic way of the sea. The next day we managed to come in side the Bahai Gardens in Haifa what is only possible with walking tours, so we found one in Russian and really enjoyed the colorful gardens even though it was extremely hot, around 35 degrees. We actually planned to visit Zirkon Yakov after this, but we changed it to the nice bay at the Hadera beach called Olga and enjoyed a good refreshment in the sea. After having a light lunch we drove to Netanya, a city know the beach side that is known for being a holiday place with the best beaches and cafés like at the cote d'azure, and there live a lot of French people indeed. We walked around, ate a lot of ice cream and went back to Hadera to go to bed early because we planned to spend a whole day in Akko on Sunday. This trip was unbelievable hot, around 40 degrees and no wind, but luckily the underground city of the early crusaders was full of shades and the old high walls in the old city saved us. I really liked it, but to be honest the clean and Oriental atmosphere in Jaffo won my heart directly as an old arabic town in comparison to the quite dirty and chaotic Akko. On the other side, we had some fantastic fish at the oldest port of the Middle East and some beautiful views with the sunset. Very tired of the heat and the all day walk, we head back to my flat in Petah Tikwa again and stayed there the last night together, but not too long as we had to wake up at 6 am to visit my working place for an hour. I had a "waking up shift" with the friends (thats how we call the autistics not to call them by their desease) and decided to show my mom the people I work with. She was shocked in the beginning but after a certain time watching me working with them she understood how important it is to help them and couldn't stop saying how proud she is of me. Nevertheless, it made us even more tired and we were ready to go to one of the beaches in Herzliya, which are famous to be the best close to Tel Aviv. Arriving there, we found a small shop where we bought a perfect picnic of fruits, veggies, cheese and wine and enjoyed it on a blanket at the sea, after what we just fell asleep for over 4 hours. After waking up we had some lunch at a cafe and decided to go to the port of Jaffa, as it is the favourite place of my mom to spend the evening in. We were too lazy to walk to the next bus station which was quite a long walking distance, so we tried out hitchhiking and had a wonderful first experience. A very nice girl who just came from the army in her uniform and her amazing father stopped for us and brought us exactly to the beach promenade in tlv from where we had the perfect walk down to Jaffa looking at the sun going down in the sea. In Jaffo we had some coffee and our favourite arabic dessert at a cafe and walked around our favourite streets. I accompanied my beloved mom at 3 am to the taxi that sadly took her to the airport. I am very thankful for this filled trip and miss her a lot! Now I'm just waiting for my sister to come, show her around a bit too and even explore more of this extremely beautiful country! I love you, Israel.