For seven days, Arison, Perlmutter and I will drive from the beaches of Tel Aviv to the Syrian border and back to the old Burma Road - Jerusalem's supply line during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. On our route: Small museums, breezy boardwalks, wineries, herb and cheese farms, boutiques, gardens, spas _ a scenario that seems so familiar, but with distinctive twists.

We check into our hotel, the stylish beachfront Shizen in the upscale neighborhood of Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv. It's a hotel-within-a-hotel, a soothing adults-only zone separated from the family-friendly Daniel Hotel by low lights, spa music and earth-tone decor that quivers with feng shui. Though Herzliya hugs the Mediterranean Sea, this is no cramped and rocky sliver but a generous, sand-cushioned strand crowded with kite boarders, surfers, retirees, families.

A few minutes south, Tel Aviv awaits.

The city is a mishmash - in places, a dingy, commercial hub whose once-sleek Bauhaus buildings badly need a whitewash. An arts center and wide, grassy boulevard look fresher. Endless coffee cafes - the three homegrown brands chased out a Starbucks incursion - feel like a welcome mat. Day and night, young women walk alone, often with cockapoos and English bulldogs and Lhasas - not guard dogs, but the friendly canine faces of lazy afternoons.

We stop at the fashion house of Gideon Oberson. Turns out his sophisticated evening wear and designer day collection are just as impressive as the swimsuits he manufactures in Miami. His daughter, Karen, has her own line. More casual, hipper.

At the Rubin Museum, director Carmela Rubin sketches a verbal mural of the times in which the museum's namesake artist, the late Reuven Rubin, painted. How the Romanian came to Palestine in the 1920s with idyllic visions of connecting with the land and the Arabs who lived here, and how difficult it proved to feel - and become - "Israeli."

There's more wide beach here, crowded with umbrella-shaded bars and sun lovers and families pushing strollers along the Burle Marx-style chattahoochee sidewalk. A few miles away, in the former Port of Tel Aviv, a boardwalk links one-time warehouses-turned seafood houses, spa-bars (bar in front, spa in the back) and a women-oriented shopping center home to a paraphernalia shop called Sisters - Doin' it for Themselves. Someday the boardwalk will stretch all the way to Jaffa.

But the highlight of our Tel Aviv jaunt is Neve Tsedek, the city's up-and-coming version of South Beach. Founded in the late 1800s as a Jewish enclave in the sand dunes outside the crowded port town of Jaffa, Neve Tsedek became the foundation of Tel Aviv.

Today Tel Aviv towers over the district's few square blocks - homes, gourmet bakeries, pottery shops, eateries, a day spa, a performing arts space. The living room of one three-story house has been transformed into a sales space for antique linens; another homeowner sells second-hand toys, a third hand-blown glass bead jewelry.

Artist Leah Majaro-Mintz restored her crumbling family home into a museum dedicated to Neve Tsedek's early days; her grandfather founded the community and her brother was Tel Aviv's first mayor. In the corner sits the trunk once filled with her mother's trousseau; during the War of Independence in 1948, when they had no money, the fine linens were remade into clothes for her children.

The rubble-to-renaissance story reminds Arison of sitting at the News Cafe along Miami Beach's Ocean Drive. She takes pride in seeing the new shops. "The quality is really coming up."