שמורת טבע חורש עדולם

It's so fun there and there are lots of caves. It's so dark and spooky and fun. And in the first one that I went in it was so fun because I needed to crawl underground and crawling underground is fun!

היה ממש כיף אבל קצת מפחיד כי היו שם קורי עקביש ,אבל כדי לכם לבוא גם אם זה מפחיד אותכם כי ממש כיף שמ אז תבואו היה כיף.

This was a huge surprise for our family! None of us had ever been before, and we couldn't believe how impressive it was and how undiscovered it felt. We went in June and it was perfect for the hot weather because much of the time we actually spent underground.

We had a bit of trouble finding the entrance (in Google Maps it's best to put the specific site within the nature reserve that you're going to, rather than "Adullam Grove Nature Reserve" itself, because it's a large area). We ended up going to Horvat Midras, but there are many other sites within the park that look equally interesting. The official entrance we arrived at was for the Adullam-France Park, and we discovered that the two sites are pretty closely integrated with each other so you might want to do trails in both nature areas in the same day.

We spent about 2 hours in total along the short blue/green loop trail, stopping to explore the caves, tunnels, and ruins along the path. It was shocking how much was packed into this one small trail - the first stop was a long narrow hidden tunnel that was challenging for the adults to crawl through, though the kids (6 and 8) didn't have a problem. The narrowest of the openings are only 40cm, and at some points it wasn't 100% clear which way to continue. The kids immediately wanted to do the whole thing over again when we reached the end, but once was plenty for the adults. :)

We saw some incredible burial caves, including one with a giant stone wheel doorway that looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. We also saw a unique-to-Israel ancient pyramid, an ancient synagogue, and an impressive columbarium similar to the ones at nearby Beit Guvrin. Highly recommended!