CULTURE TRANSPORT
ORIENTATION SHOPPING
ACCOMODATION SPORT
With its easy informality, its warm Mediterranean beaches
and outdoor cafes, Tel Aviv is easily the most sophisticated of Israel's
cities.
The city's character can best be explained by comparing it
to Jerusalem, only 45 minutes, but in some ways 2,000 years, away. Jerusalem is
timeless and awe-inspiring a city of golden stone and layered history.
Free-wheeling Tel Aviv is where people go for business, shopping, sand, fun and
whatever happens to be ``in'' at the moment. It's the country's financial,
fashion, media and commercial centre and arguably its cultural centre too,
though some would say Jerusalem deserves that title.
By the time Jerusalem has closed up for the night, Tel Aviv
is just beginning to warm up. As in Manhattan and London, a visitor to Tel Aviv
has the feeling of being right where everything is happening. It bills itself
as the ``city that never stops.''
Today Tel Aviv has a population of some 360,000, but that
only includes central Tel Aviv and Yafo (Jaffa). Including the surrounding
cities of Ramat Gan, Holon and others which adjoin or are very near, the total
population reaches over a million and a half. That makes Tel Aviv by far the
largest conurbation in Israel.