{"id":668056,"date":"2022-03-17T12:43:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T09:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/?p=668056"},"modified":"2022-02-01T00:23:01","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T21:23:01","slug":"traveling-to-israel-on-your-own-from-russia-without-a-travel-agency-israel-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/traveling-to-israel-on-your-own-from-russia-without-a-travel-agency-israel-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Traveling to Israel on your own from Russia without a travel agency – Israel Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

The oldest state in the world. Cradle of three religions. A country that does not require a map<\/a> to travel if you know the Bible. Israel is contrasting… So ancient as new; as conservative as absorbing everything advanced; as peaceful as military. Israel, which either fall in love with for life, or absolutely do not accept it. But he will not leave anyone indifferent. Israel, generously hosting<\/a> emigrants, pilgrims and tour<\/a>ists. Israel is orthodox: closed, intimidating and fanatical. Israel is amazing: modern cities that have grown in the desert.<\/p>\n

Intriguing? This is not a set of stamps, this is the pure truth, no matter how contradictory it may look from the outside. There is only one way to be sure: to visit Israel and see everything in person.<\/p>\n

What is interesting about Israel<\/h2>\n

In addition to all of the above factors, there are several more important components that increase the number of people arriving in this country from year to year, the main of which are the following:<\/p>\n

A large Russia<\/a>n diaspora (conditionally Russian, rather Soviet, since there are a lot of immigrants from Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova in Israel), to which relatives and friends go.<\/p>\n

Excellent medicine attracts a lot of sufferers to Israel, since what is done in this country is a priori considered advanced.<\/p>\n

The three seas that wash the lands of Israel allow you to plunge into at least one of them at almost any time of the year; religious shrines, with their origins going back to times long before the birth of Christ.<\/p>\n

And the most important thing to say at the very beginning: the Israelis strictly adhere to Shabbat. Remember that from Friday evening to Saturday evening all entertainment establishments, banks, shops, institutions are closed, public transport does not work. Be sure to take this fact into account when planning your travel itinerary.<\/p>\n

How to get there<\/h2>\n

The planes of almost all airlines operating international flights<\/a> fly to this state.<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/p>\n

The abolished visa regime has greatly simplified the procedure for visiting this country.<\/p>\n

Minuses:<\/p>\n

Boarding planes in or out of Israel is subject to such stringent controls that it frightens people visiting the promised land for the first time. Total control, which includes checking luggage, personal search, and the most unexpected questions, often leading to a stupor.<\/p>\n

Ben Gurion Airport has the reputation of the most stringent in the world. And this is not a metaphor. Inspections and checks continue upon arrival. There are no guards or police officers in the hall, but every centimeter of the hall is monitored by video<\/a> surveillance. Everyone is well aware of the reasons for this: the Arab-Israeli conflict has taken on a protracted form. Such control has borne fruit: there has not been a single terrorist attack in the country for several years, and Ben Gurion is rightfully considered the safest airport in the world.<\/p>\n

Four hours of air travel, a series of checks in Ben Gurion and: “Hello Israel! Shalom!<\/p>\n

Transport<\/h2>\n

It depends on how you rest. Organized holiday? A bus will pick you up and take you to your destination. Decided to explore Israel on your own? Then you will get to the place of deployment yourself. How? From Ben-Gurion, this is trivially easy to do.<\/p>\n

The railway station is located on the lower tier of Terminal 3. A comfortable train will quickly take you to Tel Aviv or another city in the country. Trains run every twenty minutes during the day, and every hour at night. Remember about Shabbat, if the time of arrival or departure coincided with it, then only a taxi<\/a> is at your service.<\/p>\n

Taxi offers its services around the clock, on Shabbat and any holiday. Yes, it costs more than all alternative ways to get to the right place (to Tel Aviv, for example, on average – $ 50 for three passengers), but you are guaranteed comfort. Prices<\/a> for long-distance taxi services are fixed, a car can be ordered at a special counter in the airport halls.<\/p>\n

Buses and fixed-route<\/a> taxis will take you to any city in Israel, absolutely all vehicles are air-conditioned, so the trip will be comfortable. The parking of these types of transport is also located next to terminal No. 3.<\/p>\n

Minibuses operate around the clock, very often the drivers are “ours”, so it will not be difficult to explain which hotel in Haifa or Jerusalem to give you a ride to. And keep in mind that almost everyone in Israel speaks English, so if suddenly there is no person near you who speaks Russian (which is almost impossible), then the school English course will help you out.<\/p>\n

Renting a car is a great alternative for outdoor activities. Israel is a small country, and you can get around it quickly. There is such an anecdote: two Israelis are talking: “Moisha, what are you doing tomorrow? – I'm going around the country. “What about the rest of the day?” This is the real scale of the country. You can book a rental car in advance and it will be waiting for you at the airport. It should be taken into account the fact that despite the fact that renting a car in Israel is inexpensive, gasoline is quite expensive here.<\/p>\n

Routes<\/h2>\n

Again, the route to the most unforgettable places in this country directly depends on the way of rest. If a travel agency is organizing your holiday, then there is nothing to worry about: all routes have been thought out for a long time, you just have to decide what is interesting.<\/p>\n

The routes are all, indeed, incredibly informative: you will be taken to all the significant biblical places, you will be able to see the most ancient cities with your own eyes, admire the new cities that have grown in the desert, the most famous churches, visit museums<\/a> that are amazing in terms of expositions, lie down in the salty water of the Dead Sea, if you wish., – scuba diving in the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

If you are not a supporter of a group of tourists running from one artifact to another, and decide to spend your vacation moving around the country on your own, then you, in fact, will travel the same route as the above groups of tourists. Your advantage is the free disposal of your time, but your concern is the independent search for housing. However, this is not a problem either, because the mass of hotels, apartments<\/a> and modest apartments is up to your choice.<\/p>\n

Landmarks of Israel<\/h2>\n

Jerusalem<\/h3>\n

The center of the world, the oldest city in the Middle East, in which modern new buildings, government buildings and religious shrines are intertwined. A new city that has grown over a century, and an old city that is timeless. The old city is conditionally divided into four quarters: Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Armenian. And each of them has its own highlights.<\/p>\n

\"Traveling<\/a><\/p>\n

Church of the Holy Sepulcher<\/h3>\n

The main relic of the Christian quarter is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The number of churches in this quarter is huge, and each is a story. Some contain the greatest relics, for example, in the Church of the Resurrection – part of the crown of thorns of Jesus Christ. The Church of John the Baptist is the oldest in Jerusalem. “The Gate of Judgment”, the sorrowful path that Jesus went to Calvary – it's all there. The Wailing Wall is located in the Jewish quarter. Write a note with your most secret desire and try to put this message into the clogged cracks of the wall, the Almighty will certainly hear you.<\/p>\n

Nazareth<\/h3>\n

Holy Christian city. It is in Nazareth, where Jesus spent his childhood, that the largest Catholic church in the Middle East was erected. The beautiful Sepphoris Park is the parental home of the Virgin Mary, the preserved remains of Roman tanks, in which, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ turned water into wine; Tzippori is an ancient Jewish city with a Crusader fortress.<\/p>\n

\"Traveling<\/a><\/p>\n

Bethlehem<\/h3>\n

Located in Palestine, just 8 km from Jerusalem, on the banks of the Jordan River. It was there that Christ was born in the Cave of the Nativity, which is one of the main shrines of the Christian world. Just a few kilometers from the city there is the ancient Herodium fortress, the only object in the world bearing the name of King Herod.<\/p>\n

Akko<\/h3>\n

Saturated with architecture of a later period. The city was filled with Arabic flavor: the Al-Jazzar mosque, the Turkish bath Hamam Al-Basha, the fortress and the ancient wall of Akko, which skirted the city. Well, the most beautiful synagogue of the country “Or Ha-Torah” is located here.<\/p>\n

Dead Sea<\/h3>\n

Unique, it is impossible to drown in it even with a strong desire. The density of water is so high that one can lie on the swaying surface of the water and read a book without effort. The Dead Sea is the entire periodic table. What about mud and hot springs? People from all over the world go to this place for health, so visiting Israel and not visiting the Dead Sea is illogical.<\/p>\n

Eilat<\/h3>\n

This is a luxurious resort located on the shores of the Red Sea. This is a place of active recreation: numerous beaches, scuba diving, windsurfing<\/a>, water park, fishing, bars and yachts. The nearby Arava desert will add extreme entertainment.<\/p>\n

\"Traveling<\/a><\/p>\n

Tel Aviv<\/h3>\n

Israeli new building. There are no historical attractions<\/a>, except perhaps the legendary Jaffa, where every centimeter is history, color and oriental generosity. Tel Aviv is museums, nightclubs, the best shops and just a delight from how people built a fairy tale city in a deserted place. And this is only a small part of what you can see…<\/p>\n

Israeli cuisine<\/h2>\n

Perhaps there is no such person who would not know that Israeli cuisine is kosher. What is kosher food? These are dishes prepared with the requirements of kashrut, which stipulate permitted food, slaughter rules, and product compatibility requirements. All plant foods are considered kosher, but not all living creatures. What will you never try in Israel? Pork and rabbit, wild fowl. Never in their lives will a faithful Jew eat seafood, although they have two seas teeming with squid, lobsters, mussels, oysters and shrimps.<\/p>\n

Any seafood is not kosher by definition, because it does not have scales. Even a fish that does not have it is not kosher. So, catfish and eel are prohibited in Israel, Orthodox Jews do not eat sturgeon, although this particular fish is located in the border zone: someone allows it to be eaten, someone does not. Kashrut prohibits the simultaneous consumption of dairy and meat products, that is, such a banal example: cabbage rolls with sour cream are not kosher. Or cabbage rolls, or sour cream. In general, kosher food is the oldest food system, healthy, quite tasty, balanced.<\/p>\n

Cafes and restaurants in this country are on every corner, there is even a kosher McDonald's, there are restaurants with European food, so it's hard to stay hungry in this multinational country. But to come to Israel – and there is borscht? Come on, leave the usual dishes for everyday life, and while traveling<\/a> in Israel, try hummus, falafel, prakes, mincemeat, and gefilte fish… mmm, you will not try such stuffed fish anywhere else!<\/p>\n

Sweet charoset and teglah will leave the most unforgettable impression. Being in Israel\u2014and not tasting matzah and challah\u2014is amazing to say the least. Portions in local restaurants are so large that one is enough to feed two. In Israel, in general, there is a cult of a well-fed life, it is enough to recall the jokes about Jewish mothers: “Moishe, eat porridge…”<\/p>\n

This is how it is, modern Israel – a new old state, carefully preserving its original culture, sacredly keeping religious shrines, proud of the fact that almost everything is grown on stony soils and harvested more than once.<\/p>\n

\"Traveling<\/a><\/p>\n

Behavior rules<\/h2>\n

A state that happily welcomes tourists, but hides its life from prying eyes.<\/p>\n

You will be welcome everywhere, the main thing is to maintain a certain line of behavior:<\/p>\n

Have a nice holiday!<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are planning a vacation in Israel, then it will be useful for you to know: how to get there, how to behave, what to eat, what sights to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":605360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[3110,2519,2509],"tags":[1222],"class_list":["post-668056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asien-2-en","category-reisetipps-en","category-reisen-en","tag-affiai-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.com.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}