Romantic

Emek HaMatzleva: An oasis of nature in the city

When spring comes to Jerusalem, one of the best places to see the wildflowers bloom, especially the purple crocuses and red poppies, is in Emek HaMatzleva, at the south end of Gan Sacher. A walk here along the paved or unpaved paths that wind among the almond and olive trees is one of the best […]

Warming up with hot drinks

On a chilly Jerusalem winter day, one of the best and coziest ways to experience the city is to enjoy a hot drink in a cafe. While there is no shortage of cafes in the city, the best places offer scenic views, comfortable seats, unique stories and rich warm drinks. Here are four different places, […]

Enjoying a pot of tea with scones at KumKum

With large glass windows looking out onto Derech Bethlehem, shelves filled with colorful tea cups and an aroma of fresh-baked scones, the KumKum Teahouse emits coziness. “This is the kind of place people in Jerusalem have been waiting for,” says Elisheva Levy, the manager and pastry chef at KumKum, which opened this past summer. It […]

Exploring Jerusalem’s Springs

There are dozens of natural springs in the hills and forests surrounding Jerusalem. In fact this system of streams, pools and underground water sources has helped sustain settlement here for more than 3,000 years, providing a source of life for people, crops and animals. Now, many of these springs provide the perfect place for hiking, […]

Paint your own piece of Jerusalem

In a small art studio near the bustling Mahane Yehuda market, a table is covered with freshly-painted ceramic coffee mugs, mezuzot, and tiles. Paint brushes dipped in pale green, pink and purple paint are also scattered on the table.

An urban wildlife refuge

In the middle of Jerusalem, a large expanse of wild grasses, trees and ponds is now once again home to a growing herd of gazelles. This spring, 11 babies were born, bringing the total number of gazelles to 38. Nestled between the central Katamonim and Givat Mordechai neighborhoods, and bordered by the busy Menachem Begin Expressway, Jerusalem’s Gazelle Valley is a rare patch of nature in the city.

Walking in the footsteps of repentance

As darkness falls over Jerusalem each Thursday evening during the Hebrew month of Elul, groups of visitors will make their way to Mount Zion. Among the ancient ruins, a tour guide begins to talk about King David, who, according to Jewish tradition, conquered the city and built its first temple.

Jerusalem through my father’s eyes

In the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, a small shop called Elia Photo Service, offers a window to the city’s past. The glass cupboards, walls and countertops are covered with black-and-white photos that Elia Kahvedjian took in and around Jerusalem and other parts of Israel for more than six decades, beginning in the 1920s. There are photos of camels in the desert, horse-drawn carts on Jaffa Road, and the interior of the Old City’s Hurva Synagogue before it was destroyed in the 1948-49 war.

A new wine experience in an ancient cellar

When Eli Weisberger began renovating a small shop on Jeruslaem’s Emek Refaim Street to make it into a wine bar, he made a surprising discovery: This building once served as a wine storage cellar for the Templers, a group of Christians from German who settled in the holy land in the late 1800s. It was the Templers who built many of the stone, red-roofed buildings in the German Colony along Emek Refaim.

Bringing king david to life

A red-headed boy leads his sheep across a grassy field, interspersed with trees. The music of a flute plays and the rolling, rocky hills of Judea rise in the background. These are the opening scenes of the new evening sound and light show King David, which transforms the 1,000-year old stone walls of the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem’s Old City into a surround-sound movie theater five nights a week. Once the sun sets, David and his story come to life in this Crusader-era citadel via 18 laser projectors and 20 speakers.

The Anna Ticho house

A Place for Art and Culture; old and new Before the state of Israel was established, botanist Baruch Chizik and artist Aharon HaLevy traveled around rural Palestine, cataloguing all of the plants they encountered. Chizik studied and identified the various flowers and cacti while HaLevy painted them. It was part of a larger cooperative scene of scientists, artists and linguists who worked together to find, document, and even create modern Hebrew names for the plants growing in the Holy Land.

More than four cups of Wine – At Red & White

When Mark Jam opened the Red & White Wine bar downtown last year, he wanted to create an elegant place for people to relax and ponder their experiences in Jerusalem. “Wine is just the medium for this,” he says. “It can be a rough city, with a lot of hustle and bustle, and people need space to stop and reflect.”

Pottery at Altogether 8

Along the shop-lined cobblestone pedestrian Yoel Solomon Street in the city’s Nahalat Shiva neighborhood, one store stands out among the others because it has two names. The door reads Cadim, but the sign on the building says Altogether 8. While it can be confusing, the shop does indeed have have two names because two different ceramic art cooperatives–among the oldest businesses on the popular street– recently joined forces.

Hearing Jewish history through music

In one corner of Jerusalem’s Hebrew Music Museum, a group of visiting children and adults are sitting in a circle, playing drums. All the drums and other instruments they are using are from Yemen and Ethiopia and other lands in the region which have been home to Jewish communities throughout the centuries. Nearby, in the sprawling museum built inside ancient stone buildings in the city’s central Nahalat Shiva neighborhood, other rooms are filled with instruments from Europe, Morocco and Central Asia, also home to historic Jewish communities..

Mahane Yehuda market – The Atelier

Behind a door in one of the alleyways of Mahane Yehuda, a staircase leads up to a modern kitchen with big windows looking down onto the produce vendors and shoppers in the bustling outdoor market. An eggplant is roasting on an open flame, purple cabbages are soaking in water and small bows contain a variety of freshly-chopped herbs.

Nifleot Ein Kerem

An ancient wine press sits in a deep indentation in one corner of Shoshana Karbasi’s kitchen in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ein Kerem. The wine press is more than 2,000 years old, but was discovered only about 250 years ago when the stone home was built, Karbassi explains. The home’s first owners, Turks who lived here when the Ottoman empire controlled the city, used the wine press as a water cistern, she explains

A book cafe for lovers

So many married and long-term couples have visited the cozy Tmol Shilshom cafe while they were dating that the cafe published a book about some of those who met their life-partners here. That book, Stories of Love, features ten couples, and is just a glimpse of the important role this place has played in the lives of so many people in Jerusalem

Jerusalem’s secret garden

From Jerusalem’s bustling King David Street, the tiny Elimelech Admoni Street leads down hill to reveal a sprawling green park, shaded with palm, pine and olive trees. Rather than city traffic and honking car horns, here it is quiet, with birds chirping in the background. This magical hidden park in the center of Jerusalem is called Bloomfield Garden, and is tucked between King David Street and the Old City. In addition to a quiet atmosphere, filled with stone paths and benches, there are also sweeping views of the Old City Walls.

Scents of Jerusalem

Hundreds of bottles filled with lavender, saffron, vanilla, frankincense and other essential oil fill the shelves inside Perfuniq, a tiny shop on Ben Sira street in the center of Jerusalem. Owner Shahar Schwartz, a trained chemist, estimates his shop offers about 1,200 different scented oils. And it is from this huge collection that customers can create their own unique perfumes.

Jerusalem by the light of the moon: segway tours

As the sun sets in Jerusalem, a small group of people glide along the city’s sidewalks on Segways, exploring the city by the light of the moon. Leaving from the First Station complex, these nighttime segway tours explore the picturesque Yemin Moshe neighborhood with its sweeping views of the illuminated Old City Walls, as well as the vibrant Mamilla outdoor shopping corridor, and several alleyways inside the Old City itself.

Sweet Ein Kerem chocolate-making

Along the street up to Ein Kerem’s famous St John the Baptist Monastery is a small shop with a glass case full of handmade chocolates and gourmet ice cream. Called Sweet Ein Kerem, this little space is what owner Ofer Amsalem calls the “window” to his business’s larger location, which includes a chocolate factory and cafe, another 100 meters up the street.

Out of the blue

Inside a glass case at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum, a stone tablet from the 13th century BCE reveals how some people in the lands of ancient Canaan paid their taxes not with gold or silver, but with bundles of wool dyed in blue.

Wine-tasting and Romantic tours

Wine-tasting and tours add to famous romantic landmark For more than a century the blades of the towering windmill in Mishkanot Sha’ananim did not rotate. But that didn’t stop this historic neighborhood from becoming one of the most romantic places in the city, a site where hundreds of couples got engaged or posed for wedding photos each year.

Searching for hidden clues in Jerusalem

Ten years ago, a Jerusalem tour guide asked educator Tali Kaplinski Tarlow to organize a scavenger hunt for a group of tourists who had already seen practically everything in the city. So she put together a route through Nachlaot that took visitors down the lesser-known alleyways and introduced them to the hidden stories of the neighborhood surrounding the Mahane Yehuda market.

Rooms Filtering