Yarkon Park (officially called Ganei Yehoshua in honour of Yehoshua Rabinovich, one of Tel Aviv's mayors) is the only large park in Tel Aviv, the "green lungs" of the city. The Yarkon has been compared to New York's Central Park in terms of its importance to the city's residents. No wonder the Yarkon is so popular, with about 16 million visitors a year.
Opened in 1973, the park stretches along Israel's longest coastal river, the Yarkon, which flows to the Mediterranean Sea. The river is not considered clean - it was heavily polluted in the 1950s - and although there have been efforts to clean it up since then, and in 2011 the mayor of Tel Aviv defiantly jumped into the water and swam, locals advise against fishing here. Despite this, the park is home to storks, herons, geese, ducks and many other birds, as well as nutria, porcupines, mongooses and even jackals.
To see the sights, you can rent a bicycle and ride the park from end to end. The cycle path runs along the riverbank. Cyclists, runners, Nordic walkers with poles, and walkers with dogs are often found here. If you start from the west side, you will pass the building of the rowing centre, built in the shape of an inverted boat; past the Memorial to the Victims of Terrorism; past many sports grounds (for fans of basketball, football, baseball, roller skating, tennis, rock climbing). Then, after passing under several bridges, you can turn to a group of gardens - tropical, rock, cactus.
In general, most of the trees in the park are eucalyptus, they were once specially distributed in Israel for better drainage of swamps. But in the tropical garden you can admire orchids, vines, palms. The rock garden is a large collection of rock specimens characteristic of the Israeli landscape, with poetic explanations: for example, limestone is labelled on a plaque as a gift from the sea and granite as a message from the depths. In the cactus garden there are more than 3,000 species of these plants.
Next to the gardens there is an artificial lake with swans. Many people hire boats, pedal boats, kayaks or have a picnic on the shore after unwrapping sandwiches. Not far from a small dam on the Yarkon River are the ruins of 19th century mills built on the site of older ones (it is possible that flour was milled here in the Roman period). The place is called "Seven Mills". Visitors with children are attracted by the Tsapari mini-zoo, butterfly greenhouse and children's playgrounds. "Tsapari is mainly inhabited by birds (most of them parrots), but there are also turtles, rabbits and guinea pigs - you can pet them.
The walk ends at the eastern end of Yarkon Park. The bicycle path goes on, but tourists tired of new impressions, it's time to relax in "Meimadion", Israel's largest water park with dozens of attractions - water slides and pools for all ages.
