Dec 21 - Tel Aviv Death March

Every tip has to have at least one "Death March" for food, where we can't find a restaurant that is just right for us to have the next meal in. Reasons for rejecting any given restaurant are legion:

• Too fancy.
• Not fancy enough.
• Too crowded.
• Too empty.
• No shade.
• Too dark.
• Too touristy.
• Seems "locals only".
• etc.

The difference on this trip is that normally we wait until the end of the holiday to do our death march; this time we managed it on the first day.

Arriving in Tel Aviv at 5AM, we couldn't check into our room until 3PM and therefore had the entire day to kill, so we did a walking tour around the city. We wandered the seafront promenade, had a coffee and pastry in Carmel Market, walked the entire crescent of Rothschild Blvd, then as lunchtime approached we marched several miles up to the Port of Tel Aviv, which the guide book described as "warehouses transformed into upscale restaurants, cafes, and clubs". Quite a letdown, as the Port somehow managed to be both empty and overcrowded at the same time: some wind and rain had moved in meaning the expansive boardwalk was mostly empty, yet what few restaurants were open were packed with large families fighting for few tables to get shelter from the weather. In annoyance we gave up and marched back into the city and eventually found some decent Arabic cuisine.

After lunch we managed to get into our hotel room a bit early and settled in for a short five hour nap. (Two nights sleeping on a plane followed by a 10 km hike can take it out of you.)

Dinner was much easier, as we were happy to wander the neighborhood near our hotel for some simple shawarma  at a sidewalk cafe.

So in summary, here's how we spent our first day in Israel: we walked for a bit to find some breakfast, then we walked some more to find some lunch, then rested and walked some more to find some dinner.