The elegant formal gardens of Ramat Hanadiv (“heights of the benefactor”), located on Mount Carmel about five kilometers east of Caesarea, is the final resting place of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934) and his wife Adelaide (1853-1935), the philanthropists who enabled the first Jewish communities of the nascent Zionist Movement to survive and flourish.
The gardens, established in 1954, boast spacious lawns, shade trees and varieties of roses and other plants that change and bloom with the seasons. In addition to the paved walkways of the 17.5-acre gardens, the site is surrounded by a forest-park of over 1,000 acres where the Rothschild Foundation supports research on flora, fauna and archaeology.
Hiking trails through the park are marked in a booklet available at the information center. A highlight of the forest-park is Horvat ‘Eleq, a magnificent, 150-room Hellenistic-Roman villa that probably belonging to Jewish aristocrats. It was surrounded by a protective wall, had a tower four to five stories high, and was linked to the nearby spring, Ein Tzur, where the inhabitants built themselves a swimming pool and a bathhouse. Restoration of the site gives visitors a peek at the past to go along with their restful walk through the gardens.
www.ramat-hanadiv.co.il