I’ll be honest.
Israel was not kept in my drawer of dreams, it wasn’t that essential trip that you know you’ll end up doing sooner or later; I hadn’t even given it a sideways glance, nor had I flirted with it to see if it awakened butterflies in my stomach. Nothing at all, why lie to you. Perhaps my agnostic blindfold unintentionally rejected the cradle of religions, or the undeniable conflicts acted as an involuntary veto, or simply I already had too many countries fluttering through my traveler’s imagination, scattering my attention.
Perhaps that’s why Israel, jealous of other places and weary of my indifference, devised a stratagem to cross my path and claim its spotlight. And it succeeded, because in a couple of days I have a date with it, which I’m approaching sincerely nervous, with that feeling of a smitten teenager torn between attraction and the fear of feeling let down.
During the time that has passed since Israel suddenly burst into my travel ideology, I have tried to strip myself of prejudices in order to approach the encounter with a blank passport that I am willing to fill with everything the country has to offer, whatever its nature. After reading guides, diving into other travel blogs, taking off the blindfold, informing myself, and giving it the attention previously denied, I discovered that it was absurd to keep it in ostracism when it has so many incredible places to discover and a much wider variety than I believed. And that is one of the essences of traveling; knowing how to rectify, dismantling mental barriers, soaking in other cultures because learning lies in the differences, not making judgments without knowledge, and witnessing before forming an opinion.
So, I carry in my backpack the desire to discover it with my own eyes, to experience it live, to poke around its streets, its archaeological ruins, to breathe in centuries of history, to observe the richness of its cultural contrasts, to let myself fall in love with its gastronomy and to see what that complex mix of religions, beliefs, tradition, and modernity provokes in me.
Dreams to turn into memories:
-Floating in the Dead Sea.
-Watching the sunrise from the Masada Fortress.
-Looking out over the geological abyss of Mitzpe Ramon in the Negev desert.
– Walking through the Esplanade of the Mosques to meet face to face with the Dome of the Rock.
-Hunting for aromas and sensations in the Jerusalem markets.
-Contemplating to understand the sacred rite of Judaism at the Western Wall
– Look for the perfect hummus to satisfy my traveler’s gluttony.
7-day route through Israel:
It will be just seven days to explore the country by rental car with an itinerary already fixed but where there is still room for that dose of improvisation that keeps the constant surprise. As always, time is short, but I still think it has turned out to be a very complete and perhaps somewhat ambitious route:
Day 1- Arrival in Tel Aviv- Caesarea- Acre-Tiberias.
Day 2 Tiberias- Sea of Galilee- Safed?- Nazareth?-Beit She’an- St. George’s Monastery- Dead Sea.
Day 3 4×4 route through the Dead Sea and surroundings.
Day 4 Sunrise at the Masada fortress- Mitzpe Ramon- Jerusalem.
Day 5 and 6 Jerusalem.
Day 7 Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
Day 8 Return to Spain.
Information sources:
-Forums: los Viajeros – Travel blogs: Viajes Chavetas, the Rinc3n de Sele , Viaja Blog y Viajeros Callejeros – Israel Tourism Website – Travel guides: Lonely Planet, Bradt, El Pa#s- Aguilar and Trotamundos. If you want to follow the trip you can do so on social media through the hashtag #IsraelTrip.
