Thousands of years of history come together in Jaffa, one of the world's oldest cities and the birthplace of Tel Aviv.
A center of tourism, food and fun, with an exotic Levantine ambience.
Driving to Jaffa is like going through a time tunnel- tunnel – skyscrapers soar on the left, while ahead lays a city with thousands of years behind it.
The main port of the ancient land of Israel, and one of the first ports in the world, Jaffa was a center of commerce and culture, agriculture and tourism, the destination of shipping lines from Alexandria and Beirut.
From the Clock Tower Square, convoys of wagons and camels fanned out to all parts of the land, and pilgrims made their way on foot to the holy city of Jerusalem.
The clock tower built by the Turkish Sultan Abd al-Hamid the II in 1906, when the land was under Ottoman rule, has recently undergone a facelift, as has the square surrounding it.
In the alley next to the Mahmuddiyah mosque, men are absorbed in endless games of backgammon, or shesh-besh, to use the local parlance.
Coffeehouses offering narghiles to smoke along with tiny cups of strong black Turkish coffee create an authentic Levantine atmosphere.

Twenty-two years before the founding of Tel Aviv, Jews left the walls of Jaffa and built in nearby Neve Tzedek.
These beautifully restored houses and streets preserve the romance of the early days of Jewish urban settlement.
A walking tour of Neve Tzedek is a must for romantics, history lovers and fans of small, winding alleys.
This is where the citys first cinema was built in 1914.
The Nahum Gutman Museum is located here in the home of the artist who immortalized the early days of Tel Aviv and Jaffa landscapes in his colorful paintings.
The neighborhood was nicknamed Little Paris because of its eye-opening architectural innovations.
Today, the most outstanding site is the Suzanne Dellal Centre, a bustling dance and theater complex.
How romantic to sit in the cafes and browse in the boutiques and designers shops, to see how a charming historic neighborhood survives surrounded by the skyscrapers of progress, enveloping a preserve of Jewish pioneering.

The Eretz Israel Museum - Tel Aviv is a multi-disciplinary institution which presents the history of the Land and its culture in an extensive permanent exhibit, as well as temporary exhibits on a variety of subjects – such as archaeology, ethnography, folklore, Judaica, cultural history and local identity, traditional crafts and functional arts.

We have a promenade, a long promenade, running alongside the seashore that makes up the western edge of Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
There, we walk or jog, ride bikes, sit on benches, fill our lungs with fresh air. A glorious 8.7 miles of open views, blue horizons, white sails bobbing on the waves, kite surfers and windsurfers all around.
There's a daytime promenade, and there's the nighttime version. Dozens of restaurants, cafes, and ice cream parlors are busy all day long, while pubs, discos and jazz clubs blossom after dark.
Regardless of the hour, human attractions abound – clowns, caricaturists, tattoo artists, hair-braiders, magicians and of course, the ever- changing parade of people strolling by The nearby beaches beckon.
Clean sand, lounge chairs, ice-cream vendors and diehard beach-lovers that swim daily, winter and summer, no matter what.
Each beach has its own unique character.
A few tips: On the Dolphinarium beach on Friday afternoons, for instance, you can join an improvised percussion festival, and the Brazilian martial arts/dance/music combination called capoeira.
Go to Gordon beach for beach volleyball.
The religiously observant will find gender- segregated swimming close to the Tel Aviv port.
The gay-lesbian community will gravitate to the stretch near the Hilton, which has earned the unofficial title of Tel Aviv's gay-friendliest beach.
At the Metzitzim beach, you can let your dogs and your hormones run wild among the assembled babes and hunks.