There's a little Italy in Tel Aviv!!

You heard me right - there is a Little Italy in Tel Aviv which is more exciting than you think because it possibly meant we could find some blasphemous pizza with meat and cheese! 

The area is called Sarona and apparently it has been around forever.  Way way way back in the day it was a German Templar colony and a lot of the old buildings have been preserved and painstakingly and beautifully restored.  My research tells me that a fair few of the buildings used to be located in a different area but were moved to make way for a highway.  Pretty cool stuff.

The area is remarkably beautiful.  Although it is located very close to the CBD of Tel Aviv, and right next to a bustling highway, the restoration team made sure to keep a lot of the open space and greenery and preserve the height of the area at a comfortable max of three storeys.  This means that area is very airy and spacious, something that is rare in Tel Aviv.

There are a lot of cute cafes, restaurants and boutiques and the municipality of Tel Aviv has gone to the effort of placing map stations with maps that contain various walking routes throughout the small area for example, fashion or food.

The area though does have a few rules to follow.  I guess it is to make sure the area stays as beautiful as it is but this is by far the most rules I've seen anywhere in Israel.

We started off at Anita which according to one of my housemates, is the best frozen yogurt in Tel Aviv.  Now, I am very much one for the hype, so after hearing this review, I obvs had to taste it for myself (and seeing as I hadn't had breakfast, then and there seemed to be the perfect time.  Anita has the same set up as most fro-yo places in Tel Aviv; pick your flavour and your topping and then the server will try to stuff as many of those toppings as they can in the cup. But Anita has one key difference - before they put your fro-yo in the cup, they ask if you want something at the bottom #GENIUS.  I got this almond chocolate nutella sauce they had at the bottom and OMG IT WAS AMAZING.  It's sort of a little prize when you are in the final scoops of the boring froyo at the bottom.

Hello breakfast

The best part of the whole area though was a place called Little Italy that does picnics 24 hours a day. As in they provide the basket, rug and cutlery and you then fill your basket with goodies you purchase at the store.  You then borrow the basket and take yourself on a picnic in a nearby park.  Absolutely brilliant idea!  

Due to the chilly weather, we opted to have our picnic in the enclosed area next to the cafe (they had tables with fake grass on the seats so we still felt like we were picnicing) and we ordered the most incredible Italian food including *drum roll please* the King of unKosher - PEPPERONI PIZZA!!!! ahhhhhhhh.  I'm not entirely sure that it was pork but oh my, it was incredible.  We also shared a creamed spinach pasta and a mozzarella cheese salad.  Defs 10/10.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and ended at the Azrieli Mall where I spent some hard earned dollars on clothes from H&M and Forever 21 <3 <3.

The Azrieli Mall

Until next time pepperoni pizza! 

MM x