Destination #12: Crashing weddings in Israel

Wednesday 1 September 2010 - Sunday 12 September 2010

After a couple of days rest following our South American adventures (and of course catching up on the football, which eventually literally made our TV implode), we dragged ourselves on a plane again, this time with final destination Tel Aviv.

The trip got off to a rocky start due to an altercation with Israeli border control, who bluntly ignored my desperate pleas and put a big stamp in my passport rather than putting it on a separate piece of paper as requested. I got a better treatment at the Chilean-Bolivian border from the massively corrupt Bolivian custom agents than what I got at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport. Anyway, let's call it karma as a week earlier, our friend Kingsley spent over an hour in a small room at Schiphol Airport trying to explain what a Nigerian investment banker from London thought he was going to do in Amsterdam for a weekend. Grand conclusion of this all is that any trips to Bahrain or Beirut are now firmly off the agenda, at least on this passport, and that Kingsley will think twice before going back to Amsterdam.

After a month of back-packing through South America we felt we deserved some luxury. So we spent an afternoon struggling through a pile of travel magazines before booking our trip and I can say the hotels didn't disappoint. We had a fantastic time in Jerusalem's funky Mamilla Hotel, which boasts a very chilled-out rooftop bar together with a private sun-deck on its top floor. As per Conde Nast's recommendation make sure to get room 706 for a perfect view over the old city. Also Sunday Times' Traveller's favourite boutique hotel in Tel Aviv - the 12 room Montefiore Hotel - is something worth coming back for, if only for the fact that breakfast is being served until 17:00. We loved it.

The real reason for our trip was of course to act as true "wedding crashers" for Shaul and Tamar's wedding in Ma'ale Hachimasha. A beautiful wedding which, with circa 450 people, we were told, is deemed to be a "small" affair for Israeli standards... It was also a good occasion to say goodbye to my 5-week old Che Guevara bushy beard. I have found out that having a beard has many advantages, the biggest being that food tends to get stuck in it so you will never go hungry (not that the latter is an issue which I struggle with as many of you know).

Meeting the extended Israeli part of the family was a real treat, we were invited for lunches, dinners and we even managed to squeeze in a breakfast. It was a real pleasure to, see again (for Emma) / meet for the first time (for RJ), the Israeli part of the family. Special thanks to David, Audrey, Shaul, Tamar, Gallia, Nadav, Yariv, Moran, Nick and Nelly for making our stay so memorable.

So what else did we get up to? Well we lounged at Tel Aviv’s superb beaches, met up with our dear friends Danny and Hester, visited the hugely impressive Yad Vashem holocaust museum, admired the Wailing Wall, managed to get lost in Jerusalem's old city, were close to buying some David Kracov shadow-boxes from the hip Jerusalem art gallery Eden Fine Art and of course had loads of food, from kebabs to spicy peppers and from falafel to humus. So here come our restaurant recommendations for Tel Aviv: Itzik haGadol restaurant for some traditional humus, Yakimono for the best sushi in town and for the best ice-creams make your way over to the renovated old train station, Tachana.

With two stamps in my passport richer we left Israel 10 days later, this time without a bushy beard but with a big belly.

Next stop: Destination #13: Fat Camp in France