Living the retirement dream

Wednesday April 11 is our last day for exploring as we will be packing up three months of assorted detritus on Thursday and flying out early on Friday.  Our decision was to take one last trip to Jerusalem.  We leave the house at 0720, take two buses and are in Jerusalem by 0900.  We take…

We have less than two weeks left in Tel Aviv and we expect to make the most of our short time.  Monday, April 2 is the 3rd day of Passover, which as the week evolved, we finally figured out is mostly a vacation week rather than a religious holiday.  A lot of small vendors are…

Friday March 30 was our day of preparation for the beginning of the Easter weekend and the six days of Passover.  Our local hummus guy and the Falafel kiosk are both closed for the next six days.  We stocked up on soup and hummus from Micha who makes the best soups and hummus which we…

Secret Tel Aviv is a web site that Sandy signed up for which tells about Tel Aviv’s best kept secrets of amazing events, celebrations, shops and best new bars & restaurants.  The week of March 15 the event that caught our eye was a fund raiser being held at the home of the UK ambassador…

On March 11 we departed with Dick & Andrew for our adventure to Petra.  We cabbed to Sde Dov, which is a small domestic airport only 3 Km. from our apartment, and boarded a flight on Arkia Airways for the one hour flight to Eilat. Eilat is a resort city and Israels only access to…

Monday night March 19, on a whim we decided to book a room at The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem and run in the Palestine Marathon 10K.  The only room available was the Presidential Suite and registration was closed for the 10K but we were determined, so we boldly booked for two nights in the…

Friday, March 9 is our last day of touring with Zvi.  Jim is up early and takes a very short run/walk along the Sea of Galilee in Tiberias.  The haze has cleared and the views across the sea to the Golan Heights are beautiful. After breakfast and hotel checkout we head out to The Church…

Our airbnb host Guy came over on Sunday to do some work and he suggested that we explore the north and east of Israel by driving along the Lebanese and Syrian borders, saying that it is very beautiful and interesting.  He also gave us some specific suggestions of things to see, so we rented a…

Zvi picked us up in Tel Aviv on Thursday March 8 for a two day tour of northern Israel.  First stop was Caesarea which we visited a few weeks ago with our airbnb host, see the blog “A day with Guy . . .” so we will not reiterate but instead show pictures of us…

Our plan for today was to tour Jerusalem on our own in the morning, see Bethlehem in the early afternoon and then head back to Tel Aviv.  We all like Jerusalem and our hotel so much that we decide to stay an extra night.  Everybody but Tina gets up early and go directly to the…

Zvi let us sleep late and we did not leave our hotel in Jerusalem until 8:30 heading west and then south to the Dead sea and Masada.  The views changed rather quickly from lush green Jerusalem and environs to the spectacular dry mountains of the Dead Sea area and the Judean desert.  In less that…

On Sunday March 4 at 7:30am our tour guide Zvi Levran picks us up at our Tel Aviv airbnb.  We drive to Jerusalem for an old city tour which includes Mount of Olives, Via Dolorosa, view of Temple Mount from the Austrian Hospice, Western Wall, Southern Wall excavations, Arab Quarter, Jewish Quarter, Christian Quarter and…