All in Three Weeks
, By ROBERT KEE THOUGH the return air fare from London to Tel Aviv costs £.135, this sum is probably, in terms of value, the best capital outlay for an exciting holiday that could be made anywhere in the world. Provided you are content to spend only an occasional day here and there lying on a sandy beach in the sun doing nothing, Israel, with its four quite different types of landscape, its Crusader castles crumbling into the Mediter- ranean, its Old Testament towns, its Byzantine cities splendid as miniature Pompeiis in the desert, its Christian associations, its vast Jewish fortress of Metsada still overlooking the Dead Sea and the Roman camps that besieged it; above all : the amazing sociological phenomenon which in one decade, against all military and economic odds, has united so many different nationalities into one people—all this can be 'done' quite com- fortably in three weeks.
It can be done comfortably in other ways too. In all the six main areas in which the traveller will want to spend a few days (Western and Eastern Galilee, Tel Aviv for itself and the Plain of Sharon, Jerusalem for itself and the Judean hills, Northern and Southern Negev), in each of these areas there is at least one first-class hotel by American standards, though the prices tend to be up to American standards too. There are also quite a number of moderately good hotels by, say, French standards of confort moderne. Food varies from sober excellent (rare) through goodish moderately-priced Oriental and preten- tious sub-Soho (mainly in Tel Aviv) to plain dis- gusting (fairly common). Oriental influences on Israeli cooking are the best. Wines from Mount Carmel are very drinkable and reasonably priced.
On the whole Israel is rather more expensive for the English than England. The rate of ex- change is five Israeli pounds for one English pound, and usually one feels one would be more comfortable if it were about seven. But travel inside Israel is cheap owing to the admirable system of sheruts, or shared taxis, in which everyone pays for his own seat and which run between all the main centres several times an hour. There are also good train services linking Tel Aviv withjerusalem and Haifa, though the sheriffs are usually the more convenient bet. To make the most of Galilee and the Negev, it is best to try to hire a car or jeep for a day or two there; advice about this can be had from the Israel Tourist Corporation.
The best times for a visit to Israel are from
late February to the end of June and from the end of September to the middle of November. Here are some other practical hints : do take a few days off from 'doing' the country to enjoy the wonderful sandy beaches at Herzliya near Tel Aviv and at Shavei Zion near Acre, and the skin- diving at Eilat on the royal blue Gulf of Akaba. There are first-class hotels at all these places. Don't worry about language difficulties; though Hebrew is the universal language, you can nearly always get by with English and you can talk to anyone if you have some French and German as well. Don't be put off by the Israel Tourist Cor- poration's tendency to stress Israel as 'the land of the Bible': this is only one of Israel's many fascin-
ating aspects, and in fact I found it worked the other way round : rather than the Bible making Israel interesting, it was Israel that made the Bible more interesting.
Do make good use of the Israel Tourist Corporation, which has an office in all the main centres and is one of the most human government institutions in the world. Don't be disappointed by the dimness of Nazareth from a Christian point of view; go and talk to some of the Arabs who live there, if you can get them to talk, and ask them what they think about the State of Israel. Do visit a ina'bara (temporary camp) as well as a kibbutz and a moshav. Do visit the delightful village of Pequin in Galilee where one Jewish family has been living consistently for the ,last 2,000 years as if nothing had happened in them at all. Don't delude yourself into believing that taxi-drivers or hotel servants in this egali- tarian society will necessarily be insulted by a tip.
Finally, the best method of achieving progress in the Dead Sea is a sort of upright bicycling ac- tion—as if you were riding a penny-farthing; and if you ever want to visit one of the Arab coun- tries on your present passport, get a second pass- port, which the Passport Office will issue to you for a year, or else ask the Israeli Embassy to give you your visa on a separate.sheet of paper. The address of the Israel Tourist Corporation in London is 59 St. James's Street, SW1.
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