Jerusalem, Israel

Jerusalem is one of the world's most genuinely intense cities — a place where the weight of religious and historical significance is physically palpable in the stones of the Old City walls, the crowds moving through the Via Dolorosa at dawn, and the prayers at the Western Wall at every hour. The Old City is UNESCO-listed and divided into four quarters — Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Armenian — each with its own character, market, and daily rhythm. The Western Wall (the Kotel) is the holiest accessible site in Judaism; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over the site of Jesus's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, is the most important Christian site in the world; the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount constitute one of Islam's most sacred precincts. All three within a ten-minute walk. Outside the walls, West Jerusalem is a modern Israeli city with excellent museums: Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial and Museum, one of the most important museums in the world, free), the Israel Museum (the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Shrine of the Book, the scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem, free with ticket), and Mahane Yehuda Market (the city's great food market, at its best on Friday before Shabbat). Jerusalem is more conservative than Tel Aviv, more multilingual (Hebrew, Arabic, English, and often Yiddish or Armenian are all heard in the Old City), and profoundly different in atmosphere from the beach city to the west.