Review of "חוויה בכרמים"

What an amazing trip to חוויה בכרמים at Kibbutz Shalabim today. We arrived at 11:30am and left at 4:45pm, after dragging the kids away!

When we arrived, we were just in time to catch the guided tour of the fields. We saw all kinds of fantastic fruits growing, some of which we had never seen before and couldnt even figure out what they were in English! The kids loved picking and eating the fruits which were warms and delicious. I could have stayed eating lychees and figs all morning :)



I would definitely recommend wearing more closed shoes, i was in open sandals and it was quite painful! Also worth bringing a lot of ice cold water as we ran out and then later the kibbutz also ran out so we were pretty thirsty towards the end of the day.
After the guided tour, the kids sat down at the tables. There were different stations including grinding flour and making pittot and 'butter', making tea infusions, craft tables with pine cones and clay, glass bottles to fill with grains for decoration and grass heads (rosh deshe). In addition, totally awesome and very original, just a few meters away they could go build mud bricks and make mud houses! What a dream, come true for my kids, they could have done that for hours. Ok, so word to the wise about the mud: pack a change of clothing for the kids cos they will get FILTHY! and make sure they dont wear fancy shoes, for the same reason. Also, advise you to do the pitta making before the mud bricks (need i say why? yum yum, extra crunchy pittot :))



So, after the mud, we went off to pick our grapes for making our own wine. Remember to pack hats for everyone, you do spend a lot of time out in the sun. While we waited to go off to the Gat to press the grapes, we made pittot, butter and tea, and had a little rest and a bite to eat. Then our last stop was pressing the grapes and making wine with our feet - SO MUCH FUN !The kids get dirty and wet so wait until you have done the flour, clay, mud and wine before you bother changing their clothes!



After the tour the kids could totally have done everything again but our bags were overflowing with bottles and pine cones so we decided to finally call it a day! We spent a good 5 hours there and at 35 NIS a kid (as far as i remember), it is amazing value for money. BIG 'LIKE' :)