Israel for first timers

"I've been skiing," said our taxi driver. "I said, 'I just want to rent your skis for a couple of hours.' The lady said, 'We only rent by the day.' So I said, 'OK, I'll pay you for the day, but I will bring them back in a couple of hours. I just want to go up and come down one time.' 'What about lessons?' she asked. I said, 'I'm an Israeli. If I'm going to do something, I just do it'." Here he broke off in his story to laugh. "I didn't know where I was going, so I just followed these two guys up to the top. When I got to the bottom, there was a little crowd waiting for me. Turns out, I'd gone down – what is it called? A red? A black? A hard slope, anyway – and they all wanted to see if the crazy Israeli would make it down alive." More laughter.

Thus we met our first Israeli in Israel.

Now I want to dispel some myths.

First, the one that says Israelis are rude. I found them to be friendly, helpful and chatty. Straight talking, sure, but rude? No. You can never sum up millions of people under one description, but during the week I was there I didn't encounter any rudeness.

Second, Tel Aviv's Bauhaus district is small. Absolutely not. In fact, there isn't so much a 'district' as a city filled with these lovely buildings all over the place, interspersed with skyscrapers and markets.

Third, before we went, I read a lot on the internet about how tricksy it is to go from Israel to the Palestine Territories and back again. We encountered absolutely no problems doing this. None.

If you only have a week, as we did, here is one way to fill it:

Spend the first two nights in Tel Aviv. We stayed at the Vera Hotel, on Lillianblum, which is pretty bang central – that is, near lots of cafés, restaurants and, crucially, Anita's ice cream parlour, which is on the corner of Pines and Shebazi streets. Best things about the Vera are free wine and bar snacks at any time, lovely roof terrace, friendly staff, great breakfast and its commitment to showcasing local producers, whether that's the decoration, the produce it serves or even the toiletries in the bathrooms. We were there during its soft opening, but it looks as if a spa is on the cards and, interestingly, there are rooms for under $100 on the ground floor, making it accessible to a wide range of wallets.

During your days, go to Old Jaffa, which is the fascinating oldest part of the city. A tour guide isn't a bad idea, just to get some background info, but you can wander by yourself and pick up the vibe. There's cool street art, like Ran Morin's Floating Orange Tree, and some great harbour-side seafood restaurants.

You'll also want to wander Carmel Market, which sells every kind of fruit and vegetable under the sun, or so it seems, plus baklava, breads, candies, cheese and non-edibles like menorahs and Stars of David, as well as crosses.

All the while keep your eyes peeled for the beautiful Bauhaus buildings and, of course, head to the beach, which stretches for some 8.5 miles. It's technically divided up into different bits, including Dog Beach, with doggy showers and such like; Separate Beach, which has female and male days for the religious orthodox; plus plenty of stretches, like Jerusalem Beach, where you can hire loungers and umbrellas by the day and just hang. In fact, if you hang long enough, a waiter will come from one of the beachside cafés and take your order. Not a bad way to spend a few hours and the water is crystal clear clean.

At night, eat at the Cuckoo's Nest, which is a restaurant (have the tempura prawns and fries), bar (anything with gin seems to work), performance space, antique emporium, doggy shop (as in, for all your dog's needs – coats, boots, collars), art gallery, rooftop bar, plant-sale space, all leading off a central semi-covered courtyard in a half-ruined building. In fact, if you've been to a Budapest ruin bar, you'll find yourself comparing the two.

Your second night, go the other way and eat at Rendezvous, an upmarket corner spot near the Vera (and Anita's) serving house-made bread that's good enough to be a meal all on its own. Tip: book a table if you want to sit outside.

It occurs to me I'm going too slowly for a blog, so I'll pick up the pace.

You've now been in Israel for two nights. It's time to move on to... Banky's Walled Off Hotel. It's in Bethlehem, the other side of the wall and Checkpoint 300. And now to dispel a few more misconceptions...

If you read everything on the internet, you'll believe that somehow you're not supposed to go here or that you'll have trouble finding it or that google maps will lead you astray... None of this was our experience. We took the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. You buy your ticket as you board, the journey lasts about an hour and deposits you at Central Station. From here, it's a two city-bus journey to Checkpoint 300. Google was perfectly useful in guiding us to bus stops and suggesting which bus to take.

The second bus, which brings you right to the checkpoint, was full of men, old and young and every age in between. There was one other woman on the bus aside from me. Did it feel threatening? Did it feel edgy? Not even a little. But it was packed. On the other hand, we did choose to do this journey toward the end of the working day and they were returning home to the West Bank, so this was to be expected.

When you get off at the checkpoint, my top tip is: do NOT get in an unmarked car which offers you a lift. You will be fleeced. Simply walk through the checkpoint – foreigners are pretty much waved through – and then get in a real taxi the other side for a journey that shouldn't cost you more than 10 ILS (about £3). Just say Walled Off and all the taxi drivers know where it is.

The Walled Off is a wonderful hotel. Full of quirks and interesting things, like a hidden door that leads to the nine guest rooms, waiters in red waistcoats and an almost David Lynchian dynamic. Each room has been individually curated, presumably by Banksy himself, and you are given an inventory to check off, to deter you from nicking stuff, which was something of a surprise, but I guess Banksy's a bit of a Midas and they don't want people profiting by their stay.

Also in the hotel is a gallery (not Banksy's work) and a little museum, chronicling the troubles the Palestinians have endured. Top tip: take the Green Olive tour of nearby Aida Refugee Camp. By the way, this is not a camp with tents, but buildings that mostly went up 70 years ago and people have been living here ever since. Your guide is a local man who will share his family's story and the story of the camp, and it's fascinating.

We ate dinner in the hotel – pizzas – and breakfast the next morning, which was vast and served on lovely old Victorian china. We then took a taxi tour – that is, a taxi driver took us, no real 'tour' as such – to Jericho, where we walked around Hisham's Palace (basically the ruins of a place that must have been vast and grand) built about 734 CE. There was also a stop at Zacchaeus's tree, mentioned in the bible as the place where Jesus spoke to the tax collector. And, at last, the great treat: the Dead Sea.


Another myth to be dispelled. This is not a place for a refreshing dip. Remember, you are below sea level, so it's very hot. The immersion happens in a designated place, that has changing rooms, showers, a café, a couple of shops and many, many steps down to the water. The water itself is almost slimy and viscous. Of course, it does what you hope it will and holds you completely buoyant. I tried lying front downwards and it just popped me up again, so that really, the only way to be in it is to sit in it, but this isn't relaxing. There were people smearing themselves with the mud, which is meant to be so good for you, but I started to feel the need to get out fairly quickly. Tip: bring a towel and try to take a shower before you leave the compound, or you will feel sticky and itchy all the way home.

We had one more night at the hotel, but ate dinner down the road at one of the restaurants recommended by the reception staff.

Not being churchy people, the stand-out site in Bethlehem for us was the graffiti on the wall and if you want to add to it, there's a helpful shop – named Wall Mart – next door to the hotel that will sell you spray paint, face masks and even offer stencil classes.

Jerusalem is a completely different kettle of fish than Tel Aviv. Where Tel Aviv feels a bit like New York, with lots of cool kids on their laptops and folks getting around on electric scooters, Jerusalem is like the frowning uncle making you feel bad for being boisterous. Of course, it's very beautiful as well, and fascinating, but the old city, even on a Friday, is packed. My favourite bit was watching the woman near the Wailing Wall, whose job was shouting at people who took their phones out. "No pictures! NO pictures! Put that away. I said, PUT THAT AWAY!" What a great job. Just think of all the aggression you could release...

We stayed two nights in a hotel that had looked so promising on the web and, while the staff were very nice and it was a beautiful building in a lovely residential area, I won't give its name away as they couldn't seem to rid the bathroom of someone else's hair.

Our other big destination in Jerusalem was Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. While we were queuing up to get a map, a man and woman in front of us were asking the older woman at the desk to check something for them and she was turning the pages of a big notebook, scanning down lists. They looked anxiously on.

This is not a place you visit lightly, but it must be visited. I felt its pull all the way from England. In the actual museum building (there are many other buildings and gardens there, honouring and recording and illustrating and remembering the horrors and the people who died during this terrible time), I came upon a panel about Kurt Weill, the German Jewish composer who left Berlin in 1933 after being persecuted by the Nazis and who eventually settled in America – next door to where I lived as a teenager. He died before I was even born, but his widow, Lotte Lenya, still had the house when we were there, and it was both startling and comforting somehow – like seeing an old friend – to find him in the museum.

I also saw the couple from the map queue again, going into a glassed off room where a lady sat with more big notebooks and a couple of computers. "We're looking for our father...," the woman said, as the door shut softly behind her.

Day two in Jerusalem was taken up entirely by a tour to Ein Gedi, Masada and the Dead Sea (again) run by an outfit called Tourist Israel. Our guide was a Texan named Brian and while this was initially slightly disconcerting (shouldn't he be a local person?), he was bursting with more information than he had time to tell us and he did his best to cram as much history and inside gen into us as he could.

First stop was Ein Gedi, an oasis in the desert which was extraordinary for three reasons. One, there were ibex's just wandering around near the path, nonplussed by the groups of people oohing and ahhing at them. Two, the beautiful waterfall and brilliantly clean-enough-to-drink water. Three, the desert rabbits, who were impossibly cute.

Next up was Masada, the site of a massive stand-off between the Jews and the Romans, with incredible far-reaching views over the Judean Desert and the Dead Sea to Jordan. Tip: bring water.

Finally, back to the Dead Sea, where the rest of our party scrambled into their swimsuits, but we sat it out by a conventional pool on sunloungers. Yes, I know, how many times do you get to go in the Dead Sea, right? But once seems to have been enough for me.

And so back to Tel Aviv for the final night, which was spent at Fabric, another new hotel with yet another fantastic roof terrace to hang on and absolutely the best breakfast spread we encountered the whole week. We had an amazing dinner at Abraxas North, which is a celebrity chef owned place with sharing plates that are actually big enough to share.

Our final day had us wandering through Carmel Market one last time, meandering down a crafts market we stumbled on and going to the beach for a last hit of sun and sunshine. Fabric very kindly let us come back to use their rooftop shower and change for the trip home.

"You liked Israel?" our (different) taxi driver said on the return to Ben Gurion Airport.

"Loved it," I said.

"Ah, you'll be back."