Middle East - Anthony Ham [229]
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TEL AVIV
03 / pop 382,500
A universe away from historical – and sometimes hysterical – Jerusalem, secular party-city Tel Aviv, barely a century old, is many things that Jerusalem is not: easy, breezy, sometimes garishly ugly, and open for business 24/7. It’s a city of diners, drinkers and dog owners; here, you’ll find people out for a burger at 1am, doing their laundry at 3am, and taking an early morning dip in the sea at 5am. You’ll also find hardcore left-wing activists, pockets of crumbling Bauhaus buildings unpainted since the 1950s, kite surfers, sunbathers, scores of young professionals with a couple of kids, a designer dog and cash to burn, and, increasingly, tourists from Europe arriving for a sunny weekend on budget airline flights.
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WHITE CITY?
In 2003, Tel Aviv was pronounced a Unesco-rated city for its beautiful and abundant Bauhaus architecture, an art deco–like style built in the 1930s and ’40s, with planning designed by Sir Patrick Geddes.
Though the moniker ‘White City’ is proudly applied, you’d sometimes be hard-pressed to find anything in town even approaching that colour. Every summer seems to herald garbage collector strikes, and in a city not known for its cleanliness in the first place, this wreaks havoc. Tel Avivans, moreover, just love their dogs, with a couple squeezed into every tiny apartment in town, making things often quite perilous underfoot. Add to this the fact that many of those beautiful Bauhaus buildings are slowly succumbing to the elements, and you’re not exactly approaching pristine. Still, you’ve got to love Tel Aviv, especially now that those Bauhaus beauties are slowly being restored: just remember to hold your nose if there’s a garbage strike.
For more on exploring Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus masterpieces, go to www.white-city.co.il. A free English-language guided Bauhaus tour departs from 46 Rothschild Blvd every Saturday at 11am. The Bauhaus Centre (Map; 522 0249; www.bauhaus-center.com; 99 Dizengoff St; 10am-7.30pm Sun-Thu, 10am-2.30pm Fri) also has a variety of architecture-related maps and plans of the city, along with postcards of Tel Aviv back in its gleaming heyday.
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Orientation
Tel Aviv’s bustling central area focuses on five roughly parallel north–south streets that follow 6km of seafront. Nearest the sand is Herbert Samuel Esplanade which runs along the main beach area, while the hotel-lined HaYarkon St lies a block inland. Next to the east is Ben Yehuda St, home to backpackers and an odd assortment of post-Eastern bloc immigrants, and the fourth parallel street is the trendy shopping street, Dizengoff St, which marks the geographic centre of the city. Further east again, Ibn Gvirol St forms the eastern boundary of the city centre. The smart Neve Tzedek and scruffy, but increasingly Boho, Florentine districts mark the southernmost reaches of the city centre; HaYarkon St and the Tel Aviv port (Namal) mark the northernmost.
MAPS
The English-language Tel Aviv-Jaffa Tourist map is an excellent resource and available from the Tourist Information Centre (Click here). Most hotels also have the free Tourist Map of Tel Aviv. The Bauhaus Centre (see the boxed text, Click here) has plenty of Bauhaus-slanted maps on offer.
Information
BOOKSHOPS
These bookshops are open from 9am to 6pm Sunday to Thursday, and 9am to 4pm on Friday.
Halper’s (Map; 629 9710; 87 Allenby St) Specialist in used English-language titles.
Lametayel (Map; 616 3411; www.lametayel.com; Dizengoff Centre) Specialist shop for travel books, Lonely Planet titles and maps, and has a useful travellers’ notice board.
Steimatzky (Map;