Jaffa, a favorite tourist area in the southern part of tel Aviv, was once an independent city – one of the oldest in the world.

The place is really very ancient: in the XV century BC occupied his Pharaoh Thutmose III had deemed the event worthy of written praise. Three centuries before the siege of Troy to the Egyptians helped the same stratagem: they sent the citizens Laden with gifts of camels, but in baskets sat armed warriors.

Jaffa is mentioned four times in the old Testament – for example, in this port was brought in floats Lebanese cedars for the building of Solomon's temple. From here began his journey the prophet Jonah. Jaffa is mentioned in the New Testament: here the Apostle Peter raised his disciple Tabitha. In the Hellenistic era in the capital were the armies of Alexander the great in the Jewish war, the Romans burned the Jaffa to the ground.

In the year 636 Jaffa was conquered by the Arabs, began the revival of the port. He fought Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. In the XIV century the Muslims for fear of new Crusades again destroyed the city. At the end of XVI century Jaffa represented a heap of ruins. Rebuild it in the seventeenth century began, the Ottoman Turks: they restored the Christian Church and the Inns on the way to Jerusalem and Galilee. In 1799, in the Holy Land was invaded by Napoleon – he captured Jaffa, his troops put up a hell of a terrible massacre, then the city was hit by plague. Life came back here just a few years.

In the early twentieth century a few dozen families bought land in the dunes North of the old port: this is where they decided to build the first Jewish city in Palestine. So there was modern tel Aviv, part of which later became the ancient Jaffa.

In the nineties of the last century it was restored monuments, there are a lot of art galleries, theaters, souvenir shops, restaurants, pedestrian streets. Jaffa turned into a romantic place by the sea. At Kedumim square stands the Baroque Church of St. Peter, built by the Franciscans in the late nineteenth century on the foundations of the fortress from the times of the crusaders. Its lighthouse stands out among the old buildings standing "by the sea" the house that belonged, according to the guides mentioned in the Acts of the apostles Simon the Tanner - friend of the Apostle Peter. The ancient mosque of al-Bahr depicted even on the canvas of the painter Le Brun (1675), it is the oldest functioning mosque in the city. On Time of the square stands the beautiful clock tower, built in 1906 in honor of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, later overthrown by the young Turk revolution.

Most of the archaeological findings at tel Aviv made on the hill of Jaffa. Then restored the ancient Egyptian gates the age of about three and a half thousand years. The Jaffa Museum is located in a XVIII century building, built on the ruins of the Crusader fortress.

Private gallery Farkas is the world's largest collection of historic posters of Israel. Urban flea market you can find Antiques and inexpensive clothing made of pure cotton. The second market, port, rich in seafood and oysters. And the local hummus tel-Avivi considered the best in Israel.