Jerusalem's Old City, though quartered by ancient divides, is bound together by an incandescent glow, golden in sunshine and silvery by moonlight, that adds mystery and charm to this most holiest and historical of cities.
Mingling with people wearing the spectrum of modern fashion are dark-suited ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arab women in brightly embroidered shifts and Christian clergy in sombre robes.
To take an evening stroll round the ancient walls is to tread across a mosaic of contrasting cultures and nationalities, of peoples and neighbourhoods, of the ancient and ultra high-tech.
Business, finance and sizzling nightlife are the order of the day in cosmopolitan Tel Aviv. From the Monaco chic of glamorous beachfront condos, to the shifty drinking dens of Allenby St, preconceptions of Israel are effortlessly flicked away by this confident, almost swaggering pre-centennial youngster of a city.
Travel east from Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea for a dazzling showcase of Israel's natural diversity; you'll find sprawling orange groves, sweeping white beaches, and rugged mountain tops.
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