This is part 1 of a 6-part account of a journey through Jordan which my wife and I recently undertook. We started in Amman, went up north to Jarash, then south to Petra via Madaba, onwards to Wadi Rum and Aqaba, and at the end spent a couple of days at the Dead Sea.
Amman sits on a high plateau between some 750m and 1000m above sea level and thus does not tend to experience the extreme heat that afflicts other parts of the Middle East during the summer. We were there in the second half of September and the weather was warm, but not oppressively hot.
One of the key sights in Amman is its Citadel, an archaeological treasure chest perched on top of one of the city’s hills. It contains the relics of numerous civilizations. The Roman Temple of Hercules (above) and the Umayyad Palace (above, external and below, internal views) are perhaps the most famous ones.
The Citadel also provides several good vantage points from which you can look down on the city below.
One particularly splendid view is towards the Roman Amphitheatre, a short walk away downhill.
The acoustics inside are phenomenal. If you stand at one end of the first row of seats and say something in a low voice, you can be heard quite clearly at the opposite end of the row. We tried it!
In case you are wondering why there are so few people in these shots, a partial answer is that it was election day – which meant that the locals had a day off work. The other relevant fact is that tourist numbers have dropped significantly over the last few years, because Jordan is perceived by some as a non-safe destination. If our experience is anything to go by, this label is completely unjustified. We felt perfectly safe and the locals we met were, without exception, extremely friendly and helpful.
Having had a brief look at other parts of Amman on the way, we headed for Jarash, about an hours’ drive away. Jarash is the latter-day name for Gerasa, which was one of the cities of the Decapolis, a confederation of 10 city-states in Greco-Roman times. The ruins of the ancient city are right next to the modern town and we were quite surprised by the scale of it all.
You enter the site through the well-preserved Hadrian’s Arch (above) and pass the side of the Hippodrome (below) before getting to the gate which leads you into the walled part of the city.
Recent excavations near this gate have uncovered a row of shops (on the right in the photo below) and I could not help wondering what these shops might have sold. I suspect it wasn’t postcards, guidebooks, or plastic camels.
We had a very knowledgeable guide who patiently explained things to us – without a guide you are likely to walk straight past some interesting parts of the site or completely misinterpret what you see. If you have ever seen a photo of Jarash, you will have seen the Oval Plaza (below), notable precisely because it is oval, rather than round.
I remember commenting that the builders should perhaps been more closely supervised. However, our guide suggested that its shape was dictated by the position of already existing buildings and the need to align the plaza with these as well as the city’s main street, the Cardo (below).
Jarash has two amphitheatres, both in surprisingly good condition. The smaller one – the North Theatre (below) – was particularly striking.
When you enter it from behind through one of the doors on the hill, you have absolutely no idea that it is a theatre. I thought we were walking into a low building and was taken aback when after a few steps we emerged at the top of the auditorium. In the somewhat larger South Theatre you can witness the unlikely sight of a bagpipe player in Jordanian army uniform performing Scottish tunes. The fact that you can hear him playing from a long way away is proof of the excellent acoustics (which is why they do it – apart from the fact that they hope for a tip, of course). Below are two more shots from Jarash.
The first is of the area around the North Gate, the second is taken from the Temple of Zeus and shows the scale of the site quite nicely, I think. However, our guide told us that much of Jarash has not yet been properly excavated. As there is little money to do so, he thought it might be best to leave the unexplored parts untouched for the time being – a sensible view, in my opinion. However, it also means that there might be even more to see there in 10 or 20 years’ time.
To be continued with part 2: Madaba, Mount Nebo, and Montreal Castle
For links to the other parts of this series, please click HERE
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