Tel Aviv

Why go

The largest concentration of Bauhaus buildings on earth — four thousand of them, built by refugee architects. A beach in the middle of a working city — fourteen kilometres of sand with the office towers behind it. Food from a hundred diasporas — Yemenite, Iraqi, Moroccan, Polish and Palestinian kitchens in one market. A city that runs late — dinner at ten, bars until four, and beach volleyball at seven the next morning.

The character

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 by sixty families who drew lots for plots of sand north of Jaffa, and the first thing to understand is that everything here is less than a lifetime older than that. In the 1930s architects trained at the Bauhaus and other German schools arrived as refugees and built the new city in the International Style, adapted for the climate — long balconies for shade, thin pilotis for airflow, small windows facing the sun. Four thousand such buildings went up in two decades, and the White City became a UNESCO site in 2003.

The character that grew inside that architecture is secular, argumentative and relentlessly present-tense — a deliberate counterweight to Jerusalem an hour inland. The city works long hours and then goes out; the beach functions as a public living room from dawn to dark; and the tech industry that gave the coastal strip its nickname has poured money in without yet erasing the low-rise texture. Jaffa at the southern end, Arab and older by millennia, is the reminder that the sand was never actually empty.

Places of character

Rothschild Boulevard — the spine of the White City: bauhaus façades, kiosks in the median, and the hall where independence was declared in 1948. Carmel Market and the Yemenite Quarter — the market for produce and noise, the lanes behind it for the best cheap food in the city. Jaffa flea market — antiques, Palestinian bakeries and the old port, where the city predates the city. Bauhaus Center and a Saturday walking tour — the only way to see interiors and stairwells that are otherwise private. Tel Aviv Museum of Art — Preston Scott Cohen's twisting building, and Israeli art from the 1920s onward. The tayelet at dawn — the beach promenade, when runners, swimmers and matkot players have it before the heat.

The way to do it

Adjust the clock: late mornings, afternoon at the beach, dinner at ten. Walk or use the bicycle share; the city is flat and compact. Note that Shabbat closes much of the transport from Friday afternoon to Saturday evening, though Tel Aviv itself keeps more open than anywhere in the country. Give Jaffa its own half day rather than treating it as a viewpoint.

One perfect day

Swim before eight, then coffee and shakshuka at a corner place with the papers. Bauhaus walking tour mid-morning along Rothschild and into the side streets, ending with an iced coffee under a ficus. Lunch in the Yemenite Quarter — hummus, laffa, pickles, and nothing else needed. Afternoon at the art museum in the cool, then a bicycle south along the promenade to Jaffa as the light goes orange on the stone. Wander the flea market as the bars in it open. Dinner at ten, small plates and local wine, then a bar in Florentin where the conversation is about politics and everyone has an opinion, which is the city's real cuisine.

Grand hotels

The Norman — two restored 1920s buildings joined behind a Bauhaus façade; the definitive contemporary address in the White City. Hotel Montefiore — a twelve-room colonial-era house with a Vietnamese-French bistro that the city treats as a canteen.

When to go

Best expression: May, warm sea, long evenings, before the humidity settles in. Consider: October and November, the second summer, with the water still warm and the crowds gone. Avoid if possible: August, when humidity makes the middle of the day genuinely difficult.

The frame

Ideal stay 3 nights · Minimum 2 nights · Best arrival by air; the train reaches the centre in twenty minutes · Airport TLV, 20 km · Walkability excellent and flat · Best without a car yes, with bicycles