#1. Tzfat
The mountain-top city of Tzfat is an ethereal place to get lost for a day or two. A centre of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) since the 16th century, it’s home to an otherworldly mixture of Hasidic Jews, artists and devout-but-mellow former hippies, more than a few of them American immigrants who turned to mysticism in a 1960s-inspired search for spirituality and transcendental meaning.
In the old city’s labyrinth of cobbled alleys and steep stone stairways, you’ll come across ancient synagogues, crumbling stone houses with turquoise doorways, art galleries, artists’ studios and Yiddish-speaking little boys in black kaftans and bowler hats.
Parts of Tzfat look like a shtetl (ghetto) built of Jerusalem stone, but the presence of so many mystics and spiritual seekers creates a distinctly bohemian atmosphere.