🙂 Jerash is an amazing Roman ruins site.
🙁 Delayed flight and luggage delayed by two days.
This long weekend was a highly anticipated bucket list for our 2nd to last Wonder of the New World and for Paul’s birthday. We were delighted as we got a free upgrade to Business Class for the 5 hour flight but on the downside, the flight was delayed by 2 hours (but fortunately not canceled as were another 40 short haul flights due a BA system error!!) and our luggage did not arrive in Jordan! We were greeted on arrival and met our driver for the 5 days called Abdullah, who was absolutely fantastic.
The 25th of May is Jordan independence day which is an event in Jordan marking its independence from the British government. Following World War I, the Hashemite Army of the Great Arab Revolt, took over and secured present-day Jordan. The revolt was launched by the Hashemites and led by Sharif Hussein of Mecca against the Ottoman Empire. All the vehicles had blaring music, flags and people hanging out of car windows and sitting on car rooftops!
Our hotel was the Rotana Tower – the tallest building in Amman – we were on the 22nd floor and had been upgraded to a huge corner room with spectacular views across the city.
We only got to bed at 02h00 but had a full day ahead of us so were up at 09h00 and headed downtown to buy ourselves some t-shirts and toiletries – but it was a holiday weekend…and almost every shop was closed! We found one open place that sold men’s clothing and a small chemist where we could buy toiletries. I had to settle for two small men’s t-shirts! 🙂
This morning we enjoyed a city tour of Amman, taking in landmarks including the Citadel. The Amman Citadel is an archeological site at the center of downtown Amman, the capital of Jordan. The L-shaped hill is one of the seven hills that originally made up Amman. The Citadel has a long history of occupation by many great civilisations. This historic site comprises a 1700 meter wall that dates back to the Bronze Age, the iconic Temple of Hercules, and the Umayyad Palace.
The Roman Theatre dates back to the Roman period when the City was known as Philadelphia. It was built between 138CE and 161CE, during the reign of Roman emperor Antoninus Pius. The centrepiece of the city, it was designed to be northerly oriented, to keep the sun off spectators, and could seat up to 6,000 people.
It was interesting to see the mosque.
We drove out through the pine forests and olive groves to the city of Ajloun, known for its castle, overlooking the Jordan Valley. It is a 12th-century Muslim castle situated on a hilltop belonging to the Mount Ajloun district, also known as Jabal ‘Auf after a Bedouin tribe which had captured the area in the 12th century.
We stopped off for a buffet style lunch with mezze.
We then continued to Jerash, the most complete and well-preserved city remaining of the Roman Empire, nestled in a lush valley in the biblical land of Gilead. he ancient city of Jerash is one of the most popular attractions in Jordan behind Petra. It is considered one of the largest and most well preserved sites of Roman architecture in the world outside of Italy and its history goes back more than 6,500 years. Here we strolled around the ancient temples, theatres, plazas and colonnaded streets – a stall vendor came bounding over and started taking really cool photos – we had hardly any money and kept telling him, but he accepted the couple of Dinars we had and seemed to enjoy our company and he stayed with us regardless! We had Jordanian couples asking to take photos with us!
We headed back to our hotel and went up to the Deck Bar for sundowners – we had to spend a compulsory 30JD each!! We then had our inclusive dinner at the Italian which was truly awful.
Fortunately breakfast was very good and included delicious smoothies: Strawberry, mango and kiwi. Yum. I enjoyed the traditional Jordan breakfast.
Go to: Jordan
