Tel Aviv Things to Do
February 2022
The Carmel Market (Shuk HaCarmel) is Tel Aviv’s biggest outdoor market. Alongside produce, pastries and groceries, you can find toiletries, clothes, small appliances and other household goods. There is also a large number of restaurants, particularly on the side streets off of HaCarmel Street. Check out our Food in Tel Aviv page for more details.
In Jaffa, I used gpsmycity.com to find a great walking map of Jaffa. Last on the list of 13 stops – the Aboulafia bakery. So, of course, we went there first! We got several savory pastries there; the best one was a feta cheese, spinach, za’atar and sumac-stuffed fried dough. We got through about 4 places on the walking map and then went sideways through the old streets of Jaffa, stopping to see the doorway of the house of Simon the Tanner, as well as walking around Kedumim square, which was almost entirely empty, except for a few school groups. There are a few narrow winding streets filled with art galleries and junk/antiquities shops. Nice place to spend a few hours.
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Sarona market: This is a large indoor food market. We tried and bought a lot of halwa, dates, and sesame honey bars. On some days there are additional food tables in the center. When we were there they had borekas (see photo), Korean food, and Arabic food.
Historic German Colony building that is part of the free tour near Serona Market. This building housed the olive press.
Borekas: you’ll see lots of them sold everywhere. It is lightly filled with cheese, sliced in half, and a hardboiled egg added.
Halvah Kingdom: many locations but this one is in Serona Market.
Tel Aviv Antiques Market or Sorona flea market is on a pedestrian street (Gibeon Street, a promenade between HaArba Street and HaHashmonaim Street.) near Sarona market. There are vendors with a mix of modern and old used goods. Some vendors have genuine antiques, primarily Judaica, though there was one Asian antique dealer selling netsuke. There are a number of vendors selling mid-century Russian goods, such as watches, military pins and clothes. We bought some Israeli neighborhood watch whistles for 35 shekels each. They are from the mid 1950s, used by neighborhood police to warn residents of gas attacks from Syria. 350NIS was for versions of same with the regiment and date inscribed.
The Sarona district is basically Tel Aviv’s German Colony. We took a very interesting tour of the district showing us the late 19/early 20th century buildings of the Templer colony of German immigrants (see photo above), including a working olive press and some tunnels, where during the 40s, a number of airplanes were reassembled for the nascent IDF. Templers (not to be confused with the middle age Knights Templar) were a Christian sect who believed their bodies were temples and that by farming in the holy land, they would bring about the messiah.
Noga district between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, this is an artsy area. In 2022, they expect a new light rail to be completed which will make transportation within Jaffa and between Jaffa and Tel Aviv very easy, though we enjoyed walking from Tel Aviv to Jaffa, and then all along the rail line. We enjoyed seeing the changing neighborhoods as we walked, the different types of stores and people.
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