Driving in Israel 2009: Ben Gurion International Airport to Nazareth Illit

First, a technical note about the video. This is a standard definition (SD) video that was upscaled to high definition (HD). This is my first attempt at experimenting with different rendering options. The width of the video was slightly stretched to fill the 16:9 aspect ratio nicely, but I think the quality degradation was not significant.

This is the first in a pair of driving videos I made during my recent trip to Israel, in May 2009.

This is a video of driving from Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel's biggest airport, to my hometown, Nazareth Illit. This particular video is not very good, because large portions of it are very dark. Also, I unfortunately forgot to switch off the autofocus, and as a result the really dark portions of the video have a lot of focus bouncing. However, I hope that due to the sped up nature of the video, the overall result is still not too horrible.

The total length of the drive is about 140 km (87 miles), and took about 2 hours without speeding, and even sometimes going slightly below the speed limit (we had just arrived and were very cautious).

The video begins at the airport, shortly after landing and picking up the rental car. The airport is located near Lod, a city of about 70,000 people. Via the freeway network of central Israel we pass through the heart of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan area (also known as the Dan Cluster), home to over 3 million people, or almost 50% of Israel's population. We then drive to Northern Israel via the Coastal Highway (Hwy 2), and then to Nazareth Illit via the local network of trunk and secondary highways.

I did my best to label all the roads in the video accurately. However, a note about the classification of roads in Israel: in general, blue route markers denote freeways/motorways, whereas other colours denote all other types of roads.

Unfortunately, the actual situation is a bit complex. Highway 20 is a freeway, and is marked as such. Highways 1 and 5 have freeway and non-freeway sections. In this video, we drove only on the freeway sections, so they are marked as such. Highway 2 is a complicated road, because due to its complicated history, it has sections marked as both freeway and non-freeway, with certain sections being downgraded due to neglect, while others being reconstructed and upgraded. However, in reality, at this time the whole road is built to freeway standards, being a grade-separated dual carriageway throughout its whole length. As a result, I marked it as a freeway. In the near future the neglected sections of this road will be reconstructed, and the road will be able to receive an official freeway designation. Road construction in Israel has always been an on-going process, and many local non-freeway roads are reconstructed as at-grade expressways.

Finally, we arrive in Nazareth Illit, a mountain town of about 43,000 inhabitants. It is a small and modern town built on the mountain above the ancient Nazareth.

The music is:
Late Night Alumni - Empty Streets (Haji and Emanuel Remix)
Groove Coverage - God is a Girl (Remix)

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• driving
• israel
• ben
• gurion
• airport
• tel
• aviv
• dan
• nazareth
• illit
• highway
• 20
• 70
• 75
• 77
• 79
• route
• 722
• 6400
• ayalon
• jerusalem
• haifa
• night
• car
• road
• freeway
• motorway

[PuttingItMildly]

יפה מאוד אחי

בבקשה תגיד לי אם אתה עושה עוד וידאוים

אני הייתי עושה נגיד וידאו מחיפה עד רמת הגולן ככה...

[Kot1234]

תודה. הבעיה היא שאני לא גר בישראל, אני גר בקנדה. הסרטונים האלה (יש 2 בסה"כ) הם מהביקור האחרון שלי בקיץ. בהזדמנות הבאה, כשאבקר שוב, אנסה ליצור עוד כמה :)

[PuttingItMildly]

@Kot1234

סבבה אחי אז תעדכן אותי אם תעשה

דרך אגב אתה יהודי ?

[Kot1234]

כן. גרתי בישראל במשך 10 שנה בזמני. תעשה "subscribe" וזה יעדכן אותך באופן אוטומטי. אני אצלם עוד סירטונים פה בטורונטו, למרות שעכשיו אני עסוק בלימודי אוניברסיטה. שוב תודה על הצפייה.

[grvk]

Nice movie. What camera do you use?

[Kot1234]

Thanks. The camera was the Samsung SC-MX20. I used this camera for my Israel 2009 videos, but the one I currently use for my Canadian videos is a lower-end JVC one.

[WhiteWarrior1314]

OMG..so beautiful..!!

[slowfig]

I love it! Awesome video!

[MegaVova1999]

wat a name of a music of a Driving in Israel 2009: Ben Gurion International Airport to Nazareth Illit

[MegaVova1999]

wat a name of a music

[gilbertb32]

Man your making great time lol ... Tel Aviv looks beautiful Great Vid.

Cheers from Texas

[Jordaniair]

ISRAEL!!!!!!!

[Jordaniair]

@foufoufireprince why????

[Jordaniair]

Israel is amazing, i'm so proud of israel and its existance!

[januszfcp]

Beautiful !!!

With what car did you drive for this video ?

[heliouss]

thanks for the post ! i like it ,,,the song - night driving ,,,!!

[exposingscams]

Palestine has a really nice traffic system, now free them so they can enjoy and go back to Poland.