Ein Gedi is an oasis located on the Dead Sea coast and covering an area of 25 km². It’s the lowest point on earth, some 400 m. below sea level. It is one of the most important reserves in Israel. The botanical garden covers an area with more than 900 species of plants from all over the world. The National Park has two spring-fed streams with flowing water year, which together generate about 3,000,000 m³ of water a year.

The park is a sanctuary for many types of plant, bird and animal species. The many species of resident birds are supplemented by over 200 additional species during the migration periods in the spring and fall. The vegetation includes plants and trees from the tropical, desert, Mediterranean, and stepping regions, such as Sodom apple, acacia, jujube, and poplar.

Not so many cities in the world can be acting like Jerusalem. The city is cultural, political and spiritual crashing point since ages – the crossroads for the world’s three great monotheistic religions. But there you will also find the sophisticated Jerusalem far removed from the churches,  and synagogues. The local institutions such as the Israel Museum, the annual Israel Festival, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Bezalel Arts Academy have given the city an urban edge that serves as both an anchor and oasis.

The new edge is more stylish. From its westernmost entry point to the gates of the Old City, its bright downtown slick, design-driven, architecturally important new hotels, restaurants and cultural facilities are appearing across the city. Thanks to the new commers West Jerusalem, is now beginning to carve out its own identity as a tourist destination, and will offer some surprises to people who have long seen it as a sleepy alternative to Tel Aviv.

The Dead Sea Scrolls at the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum. The museum is capped by a 30-foot conical structure covered with pictures of 600 Holocaust victims, ranging from young girls to old men — an artistic representation of the 3.1 million names the museum has collected through testimonies and other sources.

The terrace at the Dan Boutique Hotel overlooks the Old City.

The Chords Bridge, designed by Santiago Calatrava.

Tel Aviv is a city of ”half Iran” and ”half California”; it’s something like a synagogue which meets a suchi bar. Tel Aviv has some of the cleanest and most easily accessible urban beaches in the world.

Tel Aviv is a home at the end of the world Celebrating its 100^th year in 2009, the capital has been getting more practice at being a host over years.

When you walking around Tel Aviv, the modernist feeling you get from is the largest collection of Bauhaus buildings. This is a country that on the one hand is so conservative, that they don’t have public transportation on Saturdays, but on the other hand is so open that they sent a transsexual to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Children cool off in a fountain in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood, a tranquil area of about a dozen tiny streets.

This is the old Arab port Jaffa!

The seaside neighborhood, where restaurants and child-friendly shops has given a South street Seaport kind of feel.

Whether you call it Bauhaus or International Style architecture, Tel Aviv is still the only city in the world that houses such a large collection of buildings designed in this style. It evolved in Germany in the 1920’s, came to an abrupt end (in Germany) with the Nazi’s rise to power and continued to develop in the U.S. and elsewhere. In Tel Aviv of the 1930’s, Bauhaus architecture flourished, as is evidenced by many of the wonderful buildings that line the city’s streets. Since the initial publication of this issue, the “White City of Tel Aviv” has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.When UNESCO added Tel Aviv’s White City to the World Heritage List of sites designated for preservation, it made white fashionable and desireable. Thanks to the White City’s historical designation, that default color of Israeli architecture is now identified with quality.

“This is a trend that began about 15 years ago as part of Tel Aviv’s branding as the White City,” says architect Sharon Rotbard, author of the books “White City, Black City” and “Avraham Yaski: Concrete Architecture.” “In the mid-1990s, Ram Carmi began to talk about white architecture at the same time that architects began whitewashing raw concrete structures in conjunction with Brutalist architecture – for example, the planned Amal School. Eldar Sharon also painted white the Coor Building – now the Beit Amot Hamishpat Building – which he planned with his father, Arieh Sharon.

“When French architect Jean Nouvel visited Israel, he suggested making Tel Aviv a symphony of white, painting all the buildings in shades of white, and strengthening its identity as the White City, just as Jerusalem is identified with stone,” Rotbard adds.

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The main entrance to the city is the Jaffa Gate, built by Suleiman in 1538. The name in Arabic, Bab el-Halil or Hebron Gate, means “The Beloved,” and refers to Abraham, the beloved of God who is buried in Hebron. A road allows cars to enter the city here. It was originally built in 1898 when Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visited Jerusalem. The ruling Ottoman Turks opened it so the German Emperor would not have to dismount his carriage.

Dome of the Rock is one of the first and most familiar achievements of Islamic architecture. Built 687-691 by the ninth Omayyad caliph, Abd al-Malik, the Dome is probably the most spectacular building in the Old City, topped with a dazzling golden dome visible from afar, the interior layered with glittering ceramics, mosaics and Arabic calligraphy. Despite common conceptions, the Dome is not a mosque, but a shrine which protects beneath its high ceiling, a large piece of Rock sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians. The Rock is variously believed to be where Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac, where Mohammad left the Earth on his Night Journey (a small indentation was reportedly left by his foot), as well as the site of the Holy of Holies of Herod’s Temple.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a Christian church now within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. The church has been an important pilgrimage destination since the 4th century. Today it serves as the headquarters of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Catholic Archpriest of the Basilica of the Holy.

It is a city where old and new, holy and secular, pure nature and beautiful architecture mix into magical harmony of smells, sounds and sights.