ISRAEL | OLD TOWN JAFFA | WORLD BY TINA

OLD TOWN JAFFA. Among cats and oranges and hundreds of antique shops and flea markets. Hello old town of Tel Aviv.

JAFFA
This area of Tel Aviv I would say is the most charming one, like old towns usually are. Here you will find old buildings, an old and very important harbour, many flea markets and hundreds of antique shops. You will also find many tasty restaurants – quite expensive if you don’t stick to shawarma or falafel that would be my first choice. Any day of the week.

HISTORY
For a long long time Jaffa was a city itself, later on when Tel Aviv was growing, Jaffa became a part of it. There´s so much history in this part of the town that my head got all blurry just reading about it. If you´re interested in the biblical point of view – google it or fly down there and take a Jaffa-tour on spot.

SIGHTSEEING
The ancient harbour, The Clock Square, Andromeda rock, Jaffa Hill, The Zodiac alleys, Jaffa Lighthouse, The Jaffa Museum, The Libyan Synagogue (that became a hotel and a soap factory), Monastery of Archangel Michael,Tthe tomb of St Tabitha, St. Peter’s Church, Immanuel Church, The Saint Nicholas Armenian Monastery, Al-Bahr Mosque, Mahmoudia Mosque, Nouzha Mosque – as you can tell, this part of the city is filled with religious history.

THE JAFFA ORANGE
What do people think when you say ”Jaffa” – I would say oranges! And that is totally true. The Jaffa orange is from this part of the world, it´s actually a certain kind of orange aka the Shamouti orange that is a certain kind with very few seeds and a tough skin that makes it great for export. I´m pretty sure you all seen them in the stores…right?!

HAPPY NEW YEAR
This is also the place where we ended up having our new years party, down the beach drinking sparkling wine. The champagne was way toooooo expensive to even look twice at. One thing that surprised me was the lack of fireworks (time to get use to it anyways!). The clock went tick tack tick tack..and booom…nothing. Just a few people was screaming ”happy new year” down the beach. That´s it. We understood later that the beach wasn´t the place to be at all – we should have bought tickets to one of the many clubs and pubs parties. But hey, we had a great time just the four of us and shared some secrets I will keep to my self…