Getaway: Itinerary from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

To travel to Tel Aviv on business without making a diversion via Jerusalem would almost be heresy. In the strictest sense of the word. After all, Jerusalem, the cradle of the three monotheistic religions, is an eminently sacred site for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
Behind the ramparts celebrated by Chateaubriand in 1811 in his Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem lie three powerfully spiritual sites. To reach them, you have to walk up and down an incalculable number of inclines, pass through covered passageways and cross a maze of dark alleys with cobblestones as old as time.

Suddenly, in full sunlight, you arrive in the heart of the Jewish quarter at the Kotel, the Western Wall, otherwise known as the Wailing Wall, a vestige of Jerusalem's second temple before its destruction by the Romans. Then, with the heavy steps of so many stairs to climb, you reach Mount Golgotha, where Jesus is said to have been crucified and on which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built, its thick walls still pockmarked with the graffiti of the Crusaders of the year 1000. The third site is as sacred to Jews as it is to Muslims. This is the Temple Mount, which is only accessible for a few hours a day, unless you are Muslim, and where the Dome of the Rock and its shining dome dominate. It is here that Abraham is said to have submitted his will to God by sacrificing his son Isaac, who was eventually replaced by a ram, but it is also here that the prophet Mohammed, coming from Mecca on his night journey, is said to have set foot before visiting the seven heavens to meet Allah.

Whatever your religion, culture - or even atheism - the vibratory force of Jerusalem is palpable.

Whatever your religion, culture - or even atheism - you can feel the vibratory force of Jerusalem; dense, almost palpable, the result of the meditation of millions of souls over thousands of years. And yet, to see Jerusalem is also to venture outside its walls, to plunge into the colourful and tasty life of its markets where fruit is offered in abundance on the stalls: red and folded pomegranates, dates heavy with sugar, emerald green avocados, amber kumquats, but also multicoloured spices, oils and olives, sweets such as pistachio chocolate or halva.

Bohemian market and museums galore

The Mahané Yehuda market, where people used to come to stock up on their weekly victuals, has become a place to stroll where trendy bakeries and trendy cafés rub shoulders with greengrocers, cheesemongers and ironmongers. But Jerusalem, beyond its ramparts, is also home to numerous museums, including the Israel Museum, with its wealth of European and Israeli art, and the Rockfeller Museum, which holds many of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Jerusalem is also home to the ultra-Orthodox quarter of Mea Shearim, a veritable plunge into 18th-century Central Europe, where men still wear knickers and long, silky black coats, as well as the shtreiml, the wide, brown fur hat. Here, Yiddish is the language spoken most of all, because Hebrew, considered to be the sacred language of the Torah, must not be debased in everyday life. Jerusalem has many facets. Some beautiful, but also some painful, like Yad Vashem, the very moving Shoah memorial, whose museum was designed by the famous Canadian-Israeli architect Moshe Safdie.

But Jerusalem is perhaps first and foremost a city whose name must be withheld to allow each person the right to experience it in his or her own imagination.