Day 1–Yafo, the Hagana and Etzal Museums It turns out that June 1st is a very appropriate day to visit the Hagana and Etzal museums and originally the Irgun was to have been disbanded on June 1st. The first item on the day’s menu though (literally) was breakfast. Which we enjoyed at Benedict’s. It’s won the best breakfast in Tel Aviv for 5 years running. Not only does the food look beautiful, it tastes beautiful! The eggs Florentine were fantastic, as was the salad, breads and the Cafe. Ha Fouk required two cups. Just to be sure it was as wonderful as it seemed. It was.

From there we just walked a few buildings up to the Hagana Museum. This is an awesome museum! As it turns out, they have a monthly pass deal which we bought! It covers not only the Hagana museum but the Etzal museum and if I need to go back to double check something? No problem! We were met outside the Hagana museum by the very pleasant security man. I liked. Him despite the fact he wouldn’t let me have the ginger tabby that was hanging around outside the museum. It reminded me so much of Macabee. He said no doubt the cat would love to go with me, but it was the museum’s cat. The first floor of the building had the part that originally been the Hagana commanders home set up as it had been at the time. I loved looking at the furniture, the wallpaper and ceilings, all of it was intact as it had been. The museum was wonderful, and I felt like I learned alot! The next stop for the day was the Etzal museum by Yafo, and it was at that point I realized that Sheila in Israel without a writing pad was never going to work well. Lucky for me that Deb had a small notebook in her purse and I cabagged a couple pages for notes. Memo to self, acquire steno pad STAT!!! From there we had a very pleasant walk up the beach of the Medeterrainian to Yafo. Have I mentioned I adore Yafo? I adore Yafo!!!! We prowled the old streets of Yafo, did some shopping and then had dinner at Dr Shakshuka’s. Have I mentioned I adore Dr. Shakshuka’s? I do. The very nice waiter treated us to dessert with our kafe after dinner.

And, the age old question of potatoes in shakshuka or no? YES!

 

 

From there we kind of wandered around trying to find a bus home. We finally ended up walking home to Tel Aviv. It was a beautiful night for a walk, and it gave me a chance to get a photo of this tower. If you want the story behind that, you can read about it when I get it up for The Zelman Partisans. All in all? A fabulous first day back!