This is a land where one is constantly confronted by the extraordinary and the unusual. The minute one has fallen into the trap of stereotyping a situation, place, people or ambiance, be sure it will snap open and elicit an unexpected response. Paradoxes and opposites abound. 

Between Jaffa and Agrippa Streets, there is a beggar who sits at Mechane Yehuda, the entrance to Jerusalem’s fabled marketplace, the Shuk. He is dear to the heart of my five-year-old granddaughter and she runs up to him and they chatter and laugh together until it is time to move on. "Look, the kind beggar gave me a shekel," she announces, showing me the coin, as she waves goodbye to her friend.

Much like the country itself, the Shuk is a place of vivid contrasts, rich surprises and flavours, languages, spices and people from around the globe.

Its alleyways and stalls are crammed with colours and aromas and filled with the calls of the storekeepers advertising their wares. Stop at the little cafe in the heart of this vibrant marketplace – the coffee is good and the food delicious. Here you will see housewives, vendors, students, workers, businesspeople and religious couples with their children in tow. A microcosm of the city's citizens.

Jewish Quarter.

Adi Karmi Melammede, Israel’s treasured architect says, “Jerusalem is a mystical city, a city of lyricism and poetry, also of lamentation and anguish." Even the light itself seems to have a spiritual quality, bound up as it is with eons of history. Of the light Karmi Melamed says, “It is our cheapest building material," and she uses it to great effect in her exquisite buildings. A visit to the Supreme Court designed by herself and her brother Ram has the sense of a secular pilgrimage.

The building overlooks the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for the law is above all else, and the windows are designed to frame vistas of the city. They are an invitation to visit the areas they outline, particularly Nahlaot with its quiet streets, leafy squares, nursery schools and benches on which to rest and reflect. After the vibrant colours of the Shuk and the awe-inspiring Supreme Court, Nahlaot’s dreamy pastels, calm and simplicity are a delight. Young and old, students and artists, religious and secular live in its winding alleyways. Music from a guitar being played in an apartment above floats into the air; a pianist is practicing Chopin and artistry drifts through the windows.

Women segregated at the Wall.

The countryside was a Persian carpet of colour. 

Both country and cities were awash with mauve tipped rosemary, deep blue lupins and cyclamens in windowsills, the niches of Herodean walls and the cracks of ancient pathways. Tulips lined the main road into Jerusalem.

On the outskirts of Beit Shemesh is Givat Hatermusim (the hilltop of lupins), which is renowned for its floral display. Carloads of people arrive to experience this breathtaking glory and paths are strictly adhered to. As one gasps at the sheer loveliness, calls of come and see this are heard and camaraderie encourages strangers to share picnic baskets. During the remainder of the more mundane year, tourist buses arrive at this post. For here, on this hill, sat the Philistines. Across the valley sat the Jews. And here below Goliath was slain. 

This last spring was unseasonably cold and astonishingly, it snowed lightly in Jerusalem. Street bins overflowed with shattered umbrellas. This was a day to be indoors. My 14-year-old granddaughter Adi and I decided to visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s newly built Holocaust memorial. But I was unprepared for what occurred.

There is a vast amount to see in the memorial with its ineffably tragic story of loss and calamity. Adi and I decided to separate and meet up later. The time arrived and passed and she was nowhere to be seen. In that place of profound sorrow one is moved to pity and terror. I panicked, grabbed a guard and found myself saying, “I’ve lost my child. My child is lost. My child is gone.” With great empathy the young man put his arm around me. “Describe her,” he said, “and we will find her” And, magically, in all that crowd, he did. The nearby Children’s Memorial, however, attested to how pitifully few children were found and saved in the Shoah that swept through Europe. We exited to a vista of the hills of Jerusalem, a positive note to the future. 

Had I discovered the Arab drink Sachlab on my first day instead of my last in Jerusalem, I would not have fitted into my departure clothes. More like a rich pudding than a drink although it is served in a glass, its main ingredients are milk, grated coconut, walnuts and cinnamon served hot with a cinnamon straw. 

It was a sweet farewell. I sat in the Dolce Latte café at the comer of Jaffa and Ben Yehuda streets with a Russian, A Sabra (an Israel-born citizen) and a South African. Passing by was a stream of people gathered from all the corners of the earth. At some point in their lives, they will all have visited the Western Wall in the old City. Buried deep in the soul of most Jews is a need to touch its stones and leave a prayer in its cracks and think of the future with hope. 

Lynn Chadwick Sculpture Jubilee IV 1985

At the Israel Museum, the art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries are well represented, with fine pieces. Having peeked into the entrancing period rooms, I was off to the moderns when my companion stopped in a little passageway examining two pictures, which seemed to me to veer towards the chocolate box variety. He was peering so intently that I did the same.

A miracle was revealed. These were micro mosaics. They were done in a technique developed by Vatican artists in the 1600s in order to copy and preserve paintings of the great masters, which were deteriorating. The method was kept secret for 200 years. At the end of the 18th Century, Italian craftsmen revived the technique. The illusion of a painting is given by 1500 to 5 000 tesserae, minute fragments of coloured enamel, which are applied per inch. Some pieces seem no bigger than a pinhead. We gazed and gazed. 

My companion said, “You see they are like a metaphor for Israel. You must look hard and deep before you superficially judge.” As if to prove a point. A group of Arab children came by with their teacher. They sat down near a group of Israeli children and all happily filled in worksheets. There are schools where Israeli and Arab children study, play and plan together. Perhaps, like the minute but enduring tesserae, they will be the future.