Tel Aviv's history runs from a Canaanite gate older than Troy to a declaration read aloud in 1948. Three days trace Jaffa's layered port, Ottoman and German colonial quarters, the founding dunes of Ahuzat Bayit, and the archives that hold it all.
Excavated mound with the reconstructed Egyptian gateway inscribed for Ramses II (13th c. BCE), Canaanite mudbrick ramparts and Hellenistic walls. Open-air site, accessible dawn to dusk, free; signage in Hebrew, Arabic and English on 20+ strata.
Franciscan baroque church of 1894 raised over a Crusader citadel where Louis IX camped in 1252. Beneath the adjacent square, the underground centre displays third-century BCE Hellenistic house walls and cisterns found in situ. Church free; centre about 20 NIS.
Housed in a 1742 stone building that served as the first Jewish inn for pilgrims landing at Jaffa, later an olive-oil soap factory. Vaulted rooms, original cisterns and a rooftop over the harbour. Roughly 40 NIS adults, open daily 10:00-16:00.
Jaffa's great mosque, begun 1730 and enlarged in 1812 by governor Muhammad Abu Nabbut, who reused Roman granite columns from Ashkelon and Caesarea. The street sabil fountains supplied caravans; the clock tower opposite dates to 1903 for Abdul Hamid II.
The 1930 house of first mayor Meir Dizengoff where Ben-Gurion read the Declaration of Independence at 16:00 on 14 May 1948. The hall is preserved with the original table, chairs and Herzl portrait; a recorded broadcast of the ceremony plays. Around 30 NIS.
Home of Haganah founder Eliyahu Golomb, now three floors on the pre-state underground defence organisation, 1920-1948: hidden weapons slicks, illegal-immigration ship models and the Palmach's formation. Closed Fridays and Saturdays.
Black glass box built onto the surviving stone shell of a Manshiya house, marking where Irgun fighters broke through to Jaffa in April 1948. Exhibits cover the underground's operations and the neighbourhood erased afterwards for Charles Clore Park.
Sunken basalt cleft in the plaza wall marking the exact spot where Yitzhak Rabin was shot on 4 November 1995 after a peace rally. Graffiti from the mourning nights was cut from the surrounding wall and preserved under glass nearby.
Tel Aviv's original 1925 city hall, restored with the mayor's office and council chamber, plus photographs and permits from the 1909 lottery of 66 families on the dunes of Ahuzat Bayit. Roughly 20-30 NIS, combined ticket with the Bialik House next door.
The 1925 home Hayim Nahman Bialik built after arriving from Odessa, with his study, library of 4,000 volumes and painted ceilings by Yitzhak Frenkel. He lived here until 1934; the house doubles as a record of the Hebrew literary revival.
Thirty-seven restored houses of the German Templer farming colony, later a British Mandate administrative compound and then IDF ground. Cellars, wine presses and the 1871 street plan survive; a small visitor centre explains the relocations. Free to walk.
Founded 1887 by Jewish families leaving crowded Jaffa — the first Jewish neighbourhood outside its walls, two decades before Tel Aviv. Narrow lanes, the Chelouche House of 1885 and the Alliance school buildings that became the dance centre.