Sunday Drive by Hormazd Sorabjee: In the lap of Israel

Two Mercs, three seas, seven days, 1,300km and lots of desert. The Holy Land has a lot to offer, and is best experienced from behind the wheel

Half a million kilometres or, to be precise, 4,95,824km on the odometer in nine years. That’s the kind of mileage Jerusalem-based taxi driver Razi Saa’idi has clocked on his trusted W204 Mercedes C-Class. 55,000km a year or 150km a day may not seem much if you’re a taxi driver, but in a tiny country like Israel, which measures around 480km north to south and 140km east to west at its widest point, that sort of mileage is like clocking 10,000 steps on a Fitbit in your living room. It also drives home the point that the best way to get around Israel is by road. You can reach any point of the country in less than a day; the roads are superbly paved and well-marked, and traffic is pretty sparse. For such a small country, you also get incredibly diverse landscapes, plenty of natural beauty, and thousands of years of history in the form of ancient sites.

The best way to explore a small country like Israel is by road

The Mercedes GLA and Mercedes C-Class were perfect companions for a road trip in this country