The Holy Land is baking and laid over with haze. Brown smudges the horizon as if a painter has worked it with her thumb. The buildings are chunks of dirty brown-grey or cream. From the aeroplane, they seem to hug the ground. Even the taller blocks hunker down. Soon, the reason becomes clear: flat roofs. They cut off and create a no-nonsense appearance rather than the illusion of uplift. Occasionally I spot a cluster of dull red roofs with low gradients; insufficient to alter the perception.
Tonight we stay in Jaffa (or Yafo) – the port from which Jonah set sail. Not only that, it was here that Perseus rescued Andromeda from the sea monster, Cetus. They have the rocks to prove it.