Our first day started slowly because our plane from Australia had arrived very late into the night and we had spent well over 24 hours travelling. We had a delightful late breakfast, seated at the same table as a beautiful senior lady from Tel Aviv who had booked into the hotel for the Passover Holiday. She gave us a lot of helpful advice on what might be open, and which places were good to visit.

Our first stop however, wasn't to go sightseeing. We walked to the Dizengoff Centre (a large shopping mall) to purchase SIM cards for our mobile phones. We had discovered on a previous trip that it was much more economical to purchase a SIM card with a data pack to access the internet while we were travelling, rather than buy internet access at the hotels we stayed at. It did not take us long to locate the booth that sold us the SIM cards, and the man who served us was very helpful in getting everything working on our phones for us (all the instructions were in Hebrew, which we don't speak, so we were very thankful for his help). After checking out prices of other things in some of the shops, and getting a late lunch we decided it was time to start our sightseeing.

We planned to go to the Museum of the Diaspora (known as Beit Hatfutsot to locals) which was located the other side of Tel Aviv. Sadly, by the time we arrived there we discovered that it had closed early for the day as we were just entering an additional day's holiday for the end of Pesach (Passover). So we made a quick alteration in our plans and went instead to the port at the north of Tel Aviv.

The port north of Tel Aviv is located close to the place the Yarkon River empties into the Mediterranean Sea. It was built between 1936-38 during the time of the British Mandate in Palestine. Up until that time the main port had been at Jaffa, but the Arabic people had rioted and the British decided to build their own port which they could control. Later, in 1965, a new port was opened at Ashdod - some 40 km south of Tel Aviv - and so this port on the north side of Tel Aviv fell into disuse. Today it is a thriving hub of activity, with some chic restaurants, trendy shops, and abundant night-life. We thoroughly enjoyed the fresh sea-breeze and pretty outlook, and then wandered further towards the north, crossing over the Yarkon River and walking around the coast until we gained a beautiful view of Herzliya in the distance. It was a perfect afternoon for our first day in Israel.

Tags: tel aviv yarkon river