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Discover Israel

Israel packs several landscapes into a short drive. A Mediterranean coastal plain of sand beaches and ancient ports runs down the west; the wooded hills of the Galilee rise inland above the freshwater Sea of Galilee, set well below sea level in the Jordan Rift Valley; and the Negev desert fills the south, its erosion craters and canyons running to a short Red Sea frontage.

The cities differ sharply. Tel Aviv is the beach-and-nightlife one, its International Style core set back from the seafront and the old port of Jaffa at its southern end. Jerusalem is built in pale limestone across the hills, walled and dense at its centre. Haifa terraces up Mount Carmel above a working port. Nazareth sits in the Galilee hills, Akko keeps a walled Ottoman-over-Crusader old town, and Eilat is the desert-and-reef base on the Red Sea.

Top places in Israel

• Jerusalem — A hill city built in pale local limestone — sixteenth-century Ottoman walls around the Old City, covered market lanes inside them, and stone-faced neighbourhoods spreading over the hills around.
• Tel Aviv — Mediterranean beaches and a seafront promenade, the UNESCO-listed White City of 1930s International Style architecture, and old Jaffa at the southern end.
• Haifa — Terraced up Mount Carmel above a working port: the UNESCO-listed Bahá'í gardens on the slope and the German Colony's stone houses below.
• Akko (Acre) — A walled Ottoman port town built over a Crusader city — vaulted Hospitaller halls underground, sea ramparts you can walk and a fishing harbour. UNESCO-listed.
• Nazareth — A hillside city in the Lower Galilee: Ottoman-era stone houses, a covered market, the Basilica of the Annunciation and a strong Galilean food scene.
• Eilat — The country's Red Sea base at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba: coral reefs and shore diving, desert mountains behind and warm water through winter.