Jaffa, Tel Aviv’s “older sister” boasts bountiful biblical history, along with charming lanes, antiquities, quiet churches, galleries and a picturesque fishing port.

In Jaffa, Peter was divinely led to “think out of the box.” The story in Acts 10:5-23, finds Peter on the rooftop of the House of Simon the Tanner, where he had his famous vision (Acts 10:12-13), that led him to preach the Gospel to the gentiles at Caesarea. Peter's resurrection of the righteous Tabitha (Acts 9:36-42) is marked at the Russian Orthodox Church of Tabitha.

Jaffa’s landmark Church of St. Peter is off Kedumim Square, where a visitor's center shows off the city’s long and fascinating history. At the end of a lane leading through the artists’ colony to Summit Park, an archaeological dig reveals a fortress built by the “Pharaoh of the Exodus,” Ramses II.

The view of the sea reminds visitors that King Hiram of Tyre sent cedar logs for the Temple to Jaffa, where they were hauled ashore and trundled up to Jerusalem (2 Chron. 2:16).

A plaque on the beach north of Jaffa honors the 157 American Christians from Jonesport, Maine, who landed here on the Nellie Chapin in September 1866, bringing the wood with them to build their houses. The story of the American Colony is told at one of the colony’s restored houses in Jaffa, the Maine Friendship House.