Ben Shemen Forest is part of the KKL( Jewish National Fund ) Project to replantation on Israel dry lands, only 60 years after the independency, this place, in the past that was part of Judea Desert, today is a dry and beautiful forest of conifers, the contrast at sunset or sunrise transform this place in a enchanted forest in the Holy Land. Ben Shemen Forest is only 20 Km distant of Tel Aviv and 30 Km of Jerusalem, on 443 route. Photos of Israel Flowers in Ben Shemen Forest.

This are know of bringing Israel Trail walkers into conflict with armored-car army exercises. It is not unknown for a commander to stop and summarily order a hiker to take the film out of his camera. I had the place to myself, though, and did not meet a soul until the trail crossed the windy, narrow, Sha'alvim access road after a further four kilometers of a hilly and partially wooded walk. There, true to reputation, was the armored car. The young soldier, however, looked as though he had just crawled out of bed and was about to get back into it. But he proved most helpful in identifying what vegetables were growing under plastic in the opposite field. They were eggplants.

A little roadwork follows, and the path enters the very attractive woodlands skirting the south of the religious yeshiva-based township of Sha'alvim and its attractive recently-built villa-annex of Nof Ayalon. By now you get the first feeling that you are entering the orbit of the Holy City of Jerusalem – which is true at least in terms of telephone area codes.

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