Sunday Drive by Hormazd Sorabjee: In the lap of Israel
Two Mercs, three seas, seven days, 1,300km and lots of desert. The Holy Land has a lot to offer, and is best experienced from behind the wheel
Half a million kilometres or, to be precise, 4,95,824km on the odometer in nine years. That’s the kind of mileage Jerusalem-based taxi driver Razi Saa’idi has clocked on his trusted W204 Mercedes C-Class. 55,000km a year or 150km a day may not seem much if you’re a taxi driver, but in a tiny country like Israel, which measures around 480km north to south and 140km east to west at its widest point, that sort of mileage is like clocking 10,000 steps on a Fitbit in your living room. It also drives home the point that the best way to get around Israel is by road. You can reach any point of the country in less than a day; the roads are superbly paved and well-marked, and traffic is pretty sparse. For such a small country, you also get incredibly diverse landscapes, plenty of natural beauty, and thousands of years of history in the form of ancient sites.
Down to the sea
You guessed it—Israel is a great place for a road trip, and that’s exactly what we were there for in two shiny black Mercs, a GLA and a C-Class. Unlike Saa’idi’s C-Class, the one I had was the brand-new W206 model, which has just been launched in India, with only 23km on the clock.
Driving in Israel is like driving anywhere in the West. Traffic is orderly, drivers are disciplined, and the roads, while not as wide as in bigger countries, are perfectly paved.
Jerusalem was our first stop, but we left our cars at the hotel parking because the walled Old City is best explored by foot. The next day our road trip started in earnest with a 5 am start to escape a sleeping Jerusalem. It was a long day that would end at the shores of the Dead Sea, with a rambling detour to St. George’s Monastery tucked away in the biblical wilderness of the Judean desert. The narrow, twisty sliver of tarmac that took us close to the monastery was devoid of traffic and a driver’s delight. Nothing beats driving a great car on a great road to a great place.
Driving to the Dead Sea is like driving down the side of a giant bowl. Markers along the road show your altitude dropping on your way to the shores of the lowest point on earth, 420 metres below sea level. Stepping out of the car for a photo op, I was struck by the searing heat. Just the way temperatures drop as you climb above sea level, it gets hotter and hotter as you go below. Thankfully, the C-Class’s air con kept the cabin nice and chilly.
Kaleidoscope of culture
I was in the GLA for the 280km drive to Eilat, the southern tip of Israel which snakes through the Arava Valley. The change in elevation made for some terrific driving roads that undulate and curve across the reddish-coloured hills and rocky landscape. The GLA isn’t as hunkered down as the C-Class through fast sweeping bends, but it resolutely holds its line nonetheless. Eilat was sunny and lively, with a buzzing nightlife. There’s a lot to do in this resort town and activities like parasailing and scuba diving are particularly popular.
The drive back north through the breathtaking Timna National Park with its other-worldly rock formations and the spectacular Makhtesh Ramon, unique to the Negev Desert, made me think I was driving on another planet. I came back to earth on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The port of Haifa, known for its stunning terraced Baha’i Gardens that roll down the slopes of Mount Carmel, is the most beautiful city in Israel.
The historic city of Acre, the home of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, studded with mosques, citadels and baths, shaped by everyone from the Romans to the crusaders and Ottomans to the British, was the perfect place to end our drive and reflect on the past week and the 1,300km we had driven. No country packs such a kaleidoscope of history and culture in such a small area. The best part is that it’s all within driving distance.
The views expressed by the columnist are personal
Catch Hormazd Sorabjee’s column every fortnight in HT Brunch. It will next appear on July 8, 2022.
From HT Brunch, June 25, 2022
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