Dizengoff Street

Dizengoff Street is one of Tel Aviv's great urban avenues, a long, tree-lined thoroughfare that has been a byword for the city's café culture and style since the 1930s. Named after Meir Dizengoff, the city's first mayor, it runs north through the heart of the White City and has come to stand for a whole era of urban life.

It sits at the centre of Tel Aviv's Bauhaus heritage. The surrounding streets hold the world's densest concentration of International Style buildings, a UNESCO-listed ensemble of rounded balconies, ribbon windows, clean lines and pale rendered facades built by architects who fled 1930s Europe. Dizengoff's own blocks are lined with these curving modernist apartments above shopfronts and awnings.

Its social heart is Dizengoff Square. A raised circular plaza with the colourful, kinetic Agam fountain revolving at its centre, it was recently returned to street level and remains a favourite meeting point and film location. Along the street, vintage boutiques, bridal shops, bakeries, bars and legendary cafés give the avenue its enduring, faintly nostalgic buzz; for older Tel Avivans, to be "on Dizengoff" long meant to be at the very centre of things.

For travellers it is a rewarding walk rather than a single sight. Stroll from the square toward the port, ducking into design shops and stopping for coffee and cake exactly as locals do, and remember to look up to appreciate the Bauhaus architecture overhead. It is central, flat and easily reached on foot or by bike, though the pavements can be busy. The mood is best in the mild spring and autumn months and lively from morning through late evening. The nearby Bauhaus Center runs guided walking tours that decode the modernist details lining the avenue and its side streets.