Middle East - Anthony Ham [236]
Sports
Tel Avivans are passionate about their football team, the Maccabee Tel Aviv. Big matches are played October to June at Ramat Gan National Stadium (Map), reached from downtown bus 20, 42 or 67. Buy your ticket at the stadium on game day for 40NIS to 120NIS or in advance from Le-an ticket agency (Map; 524 7373; 101 Dizengoff St).
Getting There & Away
AIR
Click here for details of local and international air travel into Ben-Gurion airport and the smaller Sde Dov airport.
BUS
From Tel Aviv’s enormous central bus station (Map; 694 8888; Levinski St) outgoing intercity buses depart from the 6th floor, where there’s also an efficient information desk. Suburban and city buses use the poorly signposted stalls on the 4th floor. Tickets can usually be bought from the driver as well as from the company desks. Note that during Shabbat you’ll have to resort to sheruts.
Buses 405 leaves from here for Jerusalem (17.70NIS, one hour, every 15 minutes); bus 910 for Haifa (23NIS, 1½ hours, every 20 minutes); and buses 830, 835 and 841 for Tiberias (42NIS, 2½ hours, every hour from 6am to 9pm). There are also services to Be’er Sheva (14NIS, 1½ hours, two to three hourly) and Eilat (65NIS, five hours, roughly hourly from 6.30am to 5pm), with an overnight Eilat service departing at 12.30am.
For services to Egypt, Click here.
SHERUT
The sheruts (shared taxis) line up outside the central bus station and run to Jerusalem (20NIS) and Haifa (25NIS). On Saturday, they leave from HaHamashal St just east of Allenby St and charge about 50% more than the weekday fare.
TRAIN
Tel Aviv has two train stations: the main station, Tel Aviv Savidor Merkaz Train Station (Map; 577 4000; israrail.org.il/english), and the smaller HaShalom Train Station (Map; HaShalom Interchange)– convenient for the Azrieli Centre. From Tel Aviv Merkaz, you can travel to Haifa (26.50NIS, one hour, hourly from 5am to midnight Sunday to Thursday, 5am to 3pm Friday), and on to Akko (35NIS, 1½ hours). Trains to Jerusalem depart hourly (19NIS, 45 minutes). Heading south, you can travel as far as Be’er Sheva (26NIS, 1¼ hours, hourly 6am to 10pm Sunday to Thursday, 7am to noon Friday). To reach Tel Aviv Merkaz from the centre, take bus 61 or 62 north from Dizengoff St. Trains don’t run until after dusk on Saturdays.
Getting Around
Getting around the compact centre is easiest on foot, avoiding traffic snarls, packed buses and unscrupulous taxi drivers.
TO/FROM THE AIRPORT
From the central bus station, take bus 475 (11.70NIS), departing every 20 to 30 minutes. At least two trains per hour also service the airport from Tel Aviv Merkaz station (13NIS) between 3.30am and 11pm daily, but with limited services on Saturdays. A metred taxi from the centre of town to the airport should cost around 100NIS.
BICYCLE
Tel Aviv is flat and easy to get around by bike, though you might have to negotiate traffic, dogs, pedestrians, roadworks and other hurdles. A good rental option is O-Fun (Map; 544 2292; www.rentabikeisrael.com; 197 Ben Yehuda St), which rents bikes for 60NIS per day, including lock and helmet.
BUS
Tel Aviv city buses follow an efficient network of routes. The single fare is 5.20NIS, but for 12NIS you can buy a daily pass (hofshi yomi), which allows unlimited bus travel around Tel Aviv and its suburbs. The city centre is well covered by bus 4, which travels from the central bus station (Map; 694 8888) to the Reading Terminal via Allenby, Ben Yehuda and northern Dizengoff Sts. Bus 5 is another useful one, running from the central bus station to Dizengoff Sq. Buses don’t run on Shabbat (Saturday), until the evening.
SHERUTS & TAXIS
Sherut 4 follows the same route as bus 4 and operates on Shabbat, when the bus doesn’t (for double the price), from the northern end of Ben Yehuda St to the bottom of Allenby St. If you’re taking a taxi, make sure the driver turns the meter on; minimum fare