... all day long (Tel Aviv timelapse video by Noam Armonn)

Tel Aviv from Noam Armonn on Vimeo.

In Noam's words:
Tel Aviv is my home town. It is where I was born 47 years ago. I love this city even though I have decided to leave it 14 years ago and raise my family some 150 km norther, in a small place surrounded by nature called Michmanim.

I'm happy to present you with my latest timelapse film.

Music: "Can't Stop Running" by Adam Ben Ezra
http://adambenezra.com

Clips from this film are available at:

gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?assettype=film&artist=Noam+Armonn#

Thank you so much Noam for creating this amazing video and for allowing me to share it on the blog!

... because of the Dogs beach

Busy Saturday morning on Dogs beach

Of all the spectacular Tel Aviv beaches, Dogs beach is probably my favorite. (And I don't even have a dog!) I think it's so special to me because of this extraordinary brotherhood and togetherness between all: couples and families, young and old, dogs and people; all just coexist in peace and tranquility on this (not so large) slice of sand and water. I really like how the sea and the beaches in Tel Aviv are open, inviting and accessible for all, and Dogs beach is one of the great examples of this openness. And yes, the owners can let their dogs run loose and free, and swim, and play!..

A bit of paradox (maybe), but this beach is also really calm and tranquil: not too loud, not too crowded. (Even though it may not seem so on the picture - but it's also Saturday morning in August, when all the beaches are at their busiest!) And (as I already mentioned elsewhere), dogs in Tel Aviv are really cool, friendly creatures.

I can't believe it's already the last week of August... summer is flying by so fast! Fortunately, in Tel Aviv we should have already a couple of summery-weather months ahead of us, with many days of sun, and sea, and dogs running free on the warm sand.

... because of sunsets over the Mediterranean

I'm in a bit of a hurry this weekend, but still I managed to go for a sunset watching bicycle ride last evening. And was I glad that I did! Tel Aviv port and the promenade are getting crowded these warm May weekend evenings (what a contrast from this winter evening!), but still not as crowded as it gets in the summer. The breeze is nice and calm, and the sunset is breathtaking. Posting this quick capture for Sky Watch Friday and Weekend Reflections. Have a great weekend everyone!

... when walking along the beach with a friend from far away

Hilton beach in Tel Aviv

Sveta and I are friends for a long time, since we first arrived to Israel in the 90's. Shortly after we came here, we went to different schools, and almost never lived in the same city: I moved to Tel Aviv, she remained in Jerusalem, and then, a few years back, moved to Toronto with her family. All these years we never met frequently, maybe once a year, and we didn't really talked that much in between. But each time we meet, we immediately reconnect and feel like we remain close friends, albeit the distance. At least I know that I do :)

This week she is visiting Israel with her husband and her baby daughter, and it was so exciting to see her again in Tel Aviv! Among my friends, Sveta is the one who shares the most my love to Tel Aviv beaches, and usually our walks along the beach are as long as the time permits.

Today we met in Tel Aviv port (a good meeting place, with decent amount of parking lots around!), in Tzomet Sfarim bookstore. This is one of my favorite bookstores in the whole city: it's really big, with nice art and English books sections, and there is a cafe on the second floor. You can read a book, drink coffee, and watch the sea and the port crowd... perfection.

We took the promenade southward, walked by Metzizim beach (here's my older post about it) and the segregated beach, the narrow Sheraton beach and Tel Aviv Marina and Gordon swimming pool, and then took our shoes off and walked on the sand by the water all the way till Banana beach, one of my favorites. Like on many Tel Aviv beaches, there is a cafe right on the sand of Banana beach, with small tables, plastic chairs, and green sunshade umbrellas. It serves a non-sophisticated, but really nice food, like salads, sandwiches and omelets, and the view is incomparable...

This was a perfect walk and a perfect day, only slightly tainted by the fact that I forgot to put on some sunblock (such a rookie mistake!), and got sunburned. This will serve as a reminder that the summer is here. The summer is here! I love summer in Tel Aviv...

The summer is here, and the skies are spotless in Tel Aviv. Take a look at Sky Watch Friday for skies and beautiful views all over the world.

P.S.: I've created a map of some of the places that I'm mentioning in the blog - AKA my favorite Tel Aviv spots, including today's walk milestones. Take a look and use it for your Tel Aviv explores!

P.P.S.: it has been a long pause in the posting... sometimes stuff gets in a way, and makes me forget how much fun this is :)

... because of the sport (Tel Aviv marathon)

Running along Hayarkon street, by the ocean

Naturally, I got to watch (participate? I wish!) the Tel Aviv marathon quite by mistake. This morning I had an early appointment - at 8:00 AM. Since this night the clock went forward 1h to adjust to the daylight saving time, this  was actually 7:00 AM. And since this morning many streets were closed for traffic due to the marathon - I decided to ride a bike. Only when I got to the Tel-O-Fun (bicycles for rent) station, I saw that everyone had  the same genius idea of riding a bike this morning, and surely enough, no rental bicycles were available in 4 km radius... So I sent a text apologizing for missing the appointment, and decided to go for a walk instead.

And as I walked - on Ibn Gvirol street, and then, following the marathon route, on Frishman and Dizengoff streets - I realized that this morning, if you don't get to running the marathon, the least you could do - is take a look. Because this is such a beautiful, inspiring event. All of the sudden, the city was all dressed in bright, colorful sport gear, and everyone was running, or sliding on rolling blades, or riding a bicycle - and all of the other activities had been put aside, to make place for the marathon.

Take a look at the official Tel Aviv marathon site to learn more about the various activities that took place today.

Skies are bright today in Tel Aviv... take a look at skies all over the world at Sky Watch Friday!

... because it's picture-perfect

Thanks to "Lost in Cheeseland" (one of my many Paris reads), I came across HostelBookers 7 Super Shots. Here is my attempt to show Tel Aviv as a picture-perfect city that it is.

1. A photo that… takes my breath away

I think that 80% of my Tel Aviv photo collection are sunsets over Mediterranean. Pretty much each one takes my breath away, especially if there's a sail on the horizon, and surfers in the waves...

2. A photo that… makes me smile

I can't help but smile each time I look at this picture. I can't decide if I should call it "Charlie's Angels" or "The Three Tel Avivian Graces". (Graces are goddesses of  charm, beauty, and nature in ancient Greek mythology. This Wikipedia article includes many reproductions of various "The Three Graces" paintings.) Angels or graces, they are so undeniably cool in their effortless summer outfits (the photo was taken in November by the way!).

3. A photo that… makes me dream

These two are walking on sunset, barefoot, on the warm water of the end-of-the-summer sea. This picture makes me dream of a summer...

4. A photo that… makes me think

I was taking some pictures in this shop on the main street of Hatikva neighborhood, when I saw this young mother with a baby in a stroller. As they passed by, the baby kept looking right at me - seems that my strange big camera made him think and wonder. And he made me think and wonder about the day-to-day life of his family and of families of many foreign workers that live in this neighborhood.

5. A photo that… makes my mouth water

This category was the most difficult for me. The thing is, I usually don't take pictures of food, or food markets (I probably should, especially with the later). Then I recalled that I did make exception for this hot chocolate!
Imagine a cold winter afternoon. It rains outside the glass walls of the street cafe veranda. You work on your notebook at the cafe table, slowly sipping this delicious cup of hot chocolate...

6. A photo that… tells a story

This is one of my favorite photos. I often look at it and wonder - who is this young woman? Would I recognize her if she turns to me, or is she a stranger? What is she doing on Hatikva market on Friday afternoon? She looks so different from the rest of the people on the street.


7. A photo that… I am most proud of

This photo is pretty old, but I like it so much. This is the view of Hayarkon Park, looking south. I like the stillness of this night, the perfect symmetry of the reflection, the glow of the city behind the tree line, and the many colors of the light created by the park lane lanterns and the nearby buildings...

I would like to see 7 Super Shorts from:
 - Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo
 - Sparrow Chatter
 - Fragmente (m)eines Lebens
 - Artistique
 - The View From Right Here


You can participate in this meme too! To do so, just do the following:

1. Choose 7 of your own photos, one for each of the 7 categories above.
2. Write a short description for each image.
3. Write somewhere in your blog post: ‘I am taking part in HostelBookers 7 Super Shots‘.
4. Tell HostelBookers that you have participated and tweet the hashtag #7SuperShots
5. Nominate 5 other bloggers by including a link to their blog in your post.

Take a minute to look at many perfect pictures from all over the world on "Our World Tuesday".

... on chilly mornings on a winter beach

From some reasons, I had a really hard time writing this blog post. I couldn't quite figure why. Perhaps one of the reasons is the spelling of the beach name I took this photo on. I really try to avoid spelling mistakes, especially in the names of the places (even though, "from historical reasons", I have a slight spelling mistake in the title of my blog - it's "Tel Aviv", not "Tel-Aviv" with hyphen, like it says in the title - I really must fix it one of these days!). And I took this photo on Metzizim (Mezizim? Metzitzim? Metsitsim?) beach.
This is not my favorite Tel Aviv beach. In summer time it gets really crowded, perhaps due to the proximity of large parking lots of Tel Aviv port. It's quite small, being tucked between the port and the fenced segregated beach (that has separate bathing days for men and women). But it's the one most close to my home, and this is where I ventured Friday morning.
Do you know this feeling when you happen to be one of the first to arrive someplace that just have been opened? It's though the place had been opened - or even maybe created! - just for you. This is what I felt that Friday morning on the beach. The staff of the beach cafe had just started arranging the small low tables and the plastic yellow chairs on the sand. The sand was still so fresh, almost unmarked with tracks. Everything was so new, recent, inviting. And it was so great to open a book, and glance at the grayish winter sea and sky, and recall what is looked like when it was summer.
To view images from around the world or to share an image from your world, please click here.

...on stormy days of real winter

Tel Aviv port on one of stormy winter days

Today is one of those rare stormy days in Israel: it's windy, cold, overcast. Tomorrow it's even supposed to snow on the north of the country and in Jerusalem!

Typical winters in Tel Aviv are very different. They are sunny, dry, outdoorsy. It's so wonderfully weird to look at the pictures from northern countries and see piling snow, ice-covered streams, feeble sun under the frozen land. I really like these images and stories from places where the winter is present, and real, and cannot be ignored or mistaken. I probably like the best those coming from Scandinavia. There's something very magical and severe in Scandinavian winters, and it's beautifully conveyed by photographers, writers, bloggers.

A few months ago I read a novel "The True Deceiver" by Tove Jansson. Tove Jansson is a Finnish-Swedish artist and writer, probably best known by her Moomin series (of which by the way my favorite is "Moominland Midwinter"!), but she had also written wonderful "non-Moomin" prose, such as "The True Deceiver", that only recently had been translated to English. It starts like this:

It was an ordinary dark winter morning, and snow was still falling. No window in the village showed a light. <...> It had been snowing along the coast for a month. As far back as anyone could remember, there hadn’t been this much snow, this steady snow piling up against doors and windows and weighing down roofs and never stopping even for an hour. Paths filled with snow as quickly as they were shovelled out. <...> People woke up late because there was no longer any morning.

As the title suggests, this book is about trust and deceit, and also about art, and craft, and talent. And it's also about seasons, and how they affect and influence us all. I read "The True Deceiver" when it was warm and sunny, and I could really feel the winter in a cut-out Scandinavian village, where "there was no longer any morning".

Take a look at the Sky watch Friday, to see the sky in Scandinavia, and in the Middle East, and everywhere in the world...

... because of sunlit winters

Elisabet, my French tutor, gave me an assignment: write a poem about Tel Aviv, inspired by the hit song "A Paris" by Riff Cohen that tells about ... well, Paris, in a "grocery store list" style.

Here goes:
In Tel Aviv, there are
Beaches and boulevards
Cafes and toddlers
Bicycles and surfing boards
And parks and dogs

In Tel Aviv, there are
Sunlit winters and endless summers
Banana beach and Gordon pool
The old Jaffa and Neve Tsedek
And flip flops and swimming suits

And balconies and rooftop gardens
Tiny flats and lack of space
Noisy streets and greasy alleys
And hummus and hamsin

And Bauhaus and Opera house
Allenby and Shenkin
Hacarmel market and holy land souvenirs
And poets and snobs

In Tel Aviv, there are
Beaches and boulevards
Cafes and toddlers
Bicycles and surfing boards
And parks and dogs

And reins over this all
The Mediterranean sea

Elisabeth, I'll have this in French for our class :)

... because of the beaches

The sea is certainly the best feature of this city. And thanks to the Mediterranean climate, one can enjoy it all year long.

In the winter, it's walking on the beach and surfing.

In the summer - well, it's just about everything: swimming and tanning... and wandering about... and enjoying a cold drink in one of these places with tables right in the sand... and playing beach volleyball or football or beach paddleball.

This gorgeous place is a part of my world; visit "That's my world" for other gems from all over the globe.

... because of the surfers

So it's hot, and days are long, and sleeves are short - since the beginning of April. But you really know that the summer is here when you see them on the street: young, pretty, tanned, barefoot, with their surfing board under the arm - on the way to the beach, the waves, the surf. Sometimes I wish I could surf - and be a part of this joyful community.

Summer Solstice is here - happy summer everyone! Make sure to visit Scenic Sunday for more beautiful scenery.

... when the sun sinks into the sea

"Sunset" in Hebrew is "shkiya", literally meaning "sinking". The saying goes that since the sea is westward to Israel, each evening we witness the sun "sinking" into the sea.
It's hard to believe it, but at the dawn of the city, the city officials were actually considered having an industrial zone right by the sea! Luckily, the idea was abandoned in favor of a promenade and beaches (with some help of the influential national poet Hayim Nahman Bialik who persuaded the mayor Meir Dizengoff that the sea line should be used for recreation and welfare instead).
I admired this dramatic sunset on Gordon beach. Check out what other sky watchers are admiring today.

... despite the lack of the seasons

The upper picture represents the most "extreme wintery" weather in Tel Aviv, and the lower - the "normal winter" weather (the pictures were shot within a few days one from another).
Normally, I LOVE it that it's always sunny and bright, and the weather is great 80% of the time (with ~ 5% of really cold rainy days, and 15% of insufferably hot "khamsin" days; "khamsin" is a dry, hot and dusty weather, caused by wind storms in North Africa deserts). But besides that, I find the weather really gorgeous. You can walk on the beach sand barefoot all year long. You can wear practically the same clothes all year long. You don't own a "serious" coat, or a scarf, or a hat, and you have to borrow this stuff from someone when you travel to Europe or North America in the winter.
Having said that... sometimes I miss "proper" seasons. It's so much easier to appreciate the sunshine when it comes after a storm.

Watch other skywatchers to appreciate the seasons around the world.

... when it rains

Back to my blog after a loooooooooooooong break... changing jobs after 10 (!!!) years in one company was (is :) more challenging for me than I imagined it would be, leaving practically no free time for any hobby at all... But enough with the excuses!

When it rains, the city changes its color, its mood, its habits: cafés pull inside the tables, streets get empty, people tend to remain inside... they don't know what they are missing.

Map (Hebrew).

... because of Mediterranean sea (2)

Another summer sunset over the Mediterranean. For me, this is perfection.

... because of Mediterranean sea

The picture actually taken a bit northern of Tel-Aviv, in the historical site of Apollonia, but the sea in the city is just as breathtaking.

... because of Tel-Aviv port

Tel-Aviv port is, without a doubt, one of the coolest places in the city. Restaurants, night clubs, shops and even a yoga center - the port has to offer everything to everyone. My favorite time of day in the port is the early evening: imagine walking the deck, or sipping a cup of coffee, while watching a sunset... Perfection.