Tel Aviv- Day 2
Bike Rental Plan
The plan for today was to rent bikes. Tel Aviv has 100 kms of dedicated bikes paths along the beach or tree lined pass dedicated for bikes and scooters. You can rent bikes from automated stations but to our dismay we find that the bike rental app you must download is not tourist friendly as it requires an Israeli phone number.
So we decide to walk the city by heading to Carmel Market. Starting along the beach front promenade we see surfers are in the water at Hilton Beach, waiting to catch a wave. If not for the signs in Hebrew, one would think we are on Miami Beach. There is beach after beach after beach. Very cool.
Carmel Market
Carmel Market is busy. Its a long pedestrian street of food, clothing, jewellery and everything else.
The prices are still high compared to Canada but there are a lot of unique foods to try.
Rothschild Blvd
After going through Carmel Market, we walk to Rothschild Blvd and check out the architecture. Tel Aviv is known for its Bauhaus buildings (flat roofs, not ornate 1919-1933) and has a UNESCO World Heritage designation for this architecture.
We stop at one of the small cafes along the tree lined bike path that runs up the middle of Rothschild Blvd so John can get a coffee. A regular cup of plain coffee costs 14 shekels or about $6 CAD… ouch. Israelis drink mostly Turkish coffee which is cheaper but comes in the tiny cup with the coffee grounds which is not John’s “cup of tea”.
Sabich
Vince is dying to try Sabich (a Middle Eastern sandwich which he saw on the TV series “Somebody Feed Phil“). We search and find the restaurant. The sandwiches are good but messy to eat.
Parks along the Boulevard
We head back to Rothschild Blvd.. The only bathroom we find is in McDonald’s but bathrooms are for customers only so we order ice creams in order to get a token to get access to the locked bathroom door.
Rothschild Blvd has a huge strip of green parkland that goes down the middle of the road. In those strips of green are playgrounds, ponds, coffee kiosks, boche ball areas and pedestrian, bike and scooter paths.
We pass group after group of elderly men, getting together in the shade of the tall trees in the hot afternoon, playing boche ball and gossiping.
As I mentioned before, it seems like everyone has a dog in Tel Aviv. They even have water fountains that work for both people and dogs.
I try standing on one of the rental scooters. I would love to try, but then again, it might just be an accident waiting to happen…and we can’t figure out how to use the rental app anyways.
A Lovely Moment
We pass Dizengoff Square on our way back to the apartment.
As we are waiting for our light to change, I notice an old lady in a wheelchair feeding pigeons with her caregiver. She notices me taking a picture of her and gives me the biggest, toothless smile. I could feel the joy in her from across the street. I wave to her and she enthusiastically waves back.
Vince’s Bus Dreams Squashed
Vince wants to take the bus (which runs 24/7) to the airport at 5am on Tuesday but he can’t figure out how to upload bus rides onto his bus card and the Tel Aviv buses do not take cash. Not to be deterred, all day Vince keeps trying every bus ticket machine he sees. The rest of us are not enamored with this plan…what if the bus does not run 24/7? What if we get on the wrong bus? How often does the bus run? And to make the plan even less appealing, after the bus, there would still be a train to catch to get to the airport and then John and I would need to get a shuttle to a different terminal since we are going to Romania and Em and Vince are flying home. Needless to say, John, Em and myself want to take a cab. As John so eloquently puts it, “I want my adventures happening on the trip, not on the way to the airport”. We vote and it appears that Vince’s bus travel dreams will be crushed.
Tel Aviv Port Area
We relax at the apartment for a bit before heading to the Tel Aviv port area.
Our phones say that it is 5pm but it is much darker out than yesterday. Yesterday the sun was just setting around 6pm. What is going on? Finally we realize that there was a time change in Israel last night. Thank goodness we didn’t need to catch a flight today or things could have gotten very ugly.
The other night we watched the “Someone Feed Phil ” episode from Israel which featured Phil enjoying a delicious herring sandwich from the “Sherry Herring” restaurant in Tel Aviv. We are all very excited (except John) to try the herring sandwich tonight for dinner. We check the internet which says they are open until 11pm.
With breathless anticipation, we head to the port and find Sherry Herring. It’s closed. A man nearby, seeing our disappointment informs us that it has closed for the fall.
We head to a nearby picnic table by the sea and drown our sorrows in the gin and tonics and wine which we happened to find conveniently stored in our backpacks. We clink our glasses to toast with a hearty “L’Chayim” (Hebrew for ‘to life’) just as a group of Orthodox men behind us start a prayer meeting.
After drinks we head over for pictures at the I Love Tel Aviv sign before heading back towards our apartment.
On the way Em and I have to stop at the sweets kiosk beside the closed Sherry Herring and order cotton candy. We closely watch the guy make it before devouring it in under five minutes. Click here for a short video of the guy making our cotton candy.
We then grab some shwaramas to go and return to our apartment for dinner.
