The biblical city of Joppa, (Jaffa today) is known as the port where Jonah boarded a boat to try to avoid God’s command to preach to the city of Nineveh. “The Smiling Whale” is a fun sculpture commemorating that event.
We ate our first meal in Israel at this restaurant across from the whale sculpture. 
Every lunch we had in Israel started out with “salad” which was composed of many items that could be stuffed into, spread on, or eaten with pita bread. Ahhh the humus! They knew how to make it quite tasty at this restaurant. 
Here, we also had rice, meatballs, and chicken on a skewer, and for dessert, baklava. Yum.
Jaffa is a small but lovely port city even today. There is a marina near the old city.
Along the seaside, a wide, pedestrian walkway beckons locals and tourists to stroll along by the water. 
One can even sit on a bench here and charge a wireless device. I wonder what Jonah would think of wireless devices?
To reach the higher elevations of the city, just climb these stairs or walk to either end of the city walls.
Jaffa/Joppa is the city where the Apostle Peter stayed at the home of Simon the Tanner. Now, this could not really be Simon the Tanner’s home since these old city walls were built during the Ottomon Empire, but we do know that Simon the Tanner had a house in Joppa, and perhaps this home was built right on the same spot. If not, some enterprising individual decided to capitalize on the idea.
The lovely Catholic Church of Saint Peter is in Jaffa.
According to the book of Acts in the Bible, Peter had a vision while at Simon’s house. This church displays an artist’s rendering of that vision.
I found it interesting that St George is the patron saint of the Palestinians, and this church honors him with a painting, too, and of course, St George is slaying a dragon. St George is the patron saint of many cities, and he always slays the dragon. 
Woops! Where did this canon come from. I don’t think this is biblical history.
Um, It’s Napoleon!
He is pointing the way up more stairs. Little did we know that we would be climbing 1000’s of stairs and inclines during the next 8 days in Israel. Big ones, tall ones, steep ones, precarious ones…… I saw very few overweight residents of Israel. I’m sure the stairs have a lot to do with that!
Next stop on our tour: Check in at Herods Hotel Tel Aviv.