4 Best Sights in Center City, Tel Aviv

In the midst of crowded, noisy King George Street, you can wander through Meir Park and relax on benches shaded by beautiful old trees. The first trees were planted in 1936 when the city offered to name the park after its first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, in honor of his 70th birthday. The feisty Dizengoff objected, so the park only got its official name in 1944, years after he passed away. There's a large playground that's extremely popular with local kids.

At the end of Gordon Street, this wide beach is popular with local families because of its calm water and tidal pool. Weekends you'll find both sunbathing travelers and youngsters lining the beach with sand castles. Gordon Pool, just north of the beach, is a saltwater pool that's good for swimming laps. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; toilets. Good for: swimming; walking.

Here you'll find a number of cultural institutions, including the Habima Theatre, the Charles Bronfman Auditorium, and the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art. A great place for kids to run around, the square also has a relaxation garden with music wafting from the ecologically designed seating.

Bordering the Carmel Market, this small area hides several cheap and satisfying third-generation eateries owned by Yemenite families whose traditional foods have been passed down since their arrival to the neighborhood in the 1920s and '30s. Wash your meal down with a beer as you gaze out onto the warren of cobblestone lanes. Some streets that are nice to stroll include Nahliel and Haim Havshush, lined with restaurants serving tasty hummus and flatbread. This is a soothing place for a stroll on a Friday afternoon, as the neighborhood hushes to a close for the Sabbath. Though the Yemenite Quarter was once a haven to families who could not afford living in central Tel Aviv, the historic buildings are slowly being renovated by foreign investors as vacation rental properties.