Old Jaffa

This guide to Old Jaffa in Tel Aviv opens in March 1799, when Napoleon's army stormed the port after a five-day siege and marched thousands of surrendered prisoners onto the beach. It follows the plague that swept through the shattered town and the French camp afterward, and the order Napoleon is said to have given his army doctor, a man named Desgenettes, about the soldiers dying in his care. Stand among the restored stone alleys and look for the rock just offshore where locals once said Andromeda was chained.