Amman revisited, and around: No more history please.

If history is a feast, I became the Mr Creosote (Monty Python) of history, and couldn’t manage another ‘wafer thin’ temple by the time we left………. The history outside Oz felt like a beautiful warm bath of old things when we first arrived back in Europe and we revelled in it, visiting churches, castles, pyramids, temples etc. We couldn’t get enough….until we learned we could.

We had a couple of things on our to do list when we got back to Amman: Jerash, a huge a well preserved Roman town an hour north of Amman; a trip to Madaba, a interesting town to the south of Amman; a float in the Dead Sea; Umm Qays, an old Ottoman & Roman town near the border of Israel and Syria; the Citadel in Amman and the National Museum in Amman, home of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The upside is that they are all worth visiting and are fascinating in their own right. The museum is particularly good; well laid out, modern and interactive enough to keep two very restless adults engaged.

Jerash

Whilst the ruins of Umm Qays are interesting, especially their perhaps unique use of black rock, our enjoyment mostly came from gathering trip there and back. The route goes through greener areas, massive valleys, old towns eventually very close to the edge of Jordan. As we stood in Umm Qays overlooking the Golan Heights, we were close enough to the border of Syria to hear the rumble of artillery ruining peoples day not too far in this distance.

Because of this, if you venture up to Umm Qays, you will find yourself having the place pretty much to yourselves which is lovely, and if you return via the very attractive road that hugs the border with Israel, will need to pass through a couple of meaty military checkpoints. Don’t be put off, it’s worth the trip.

Umm Qays

The Dead Sea is the most expensive swim in the world. There are a couple of choices to experience the strange sensation of floating. The first is to go to a public beach where you only have to pay for the overpriced parking and will get to swim off a reasonably unattractive beach with no showers. The water is very odd, being both slimy and itchy, so not having a shower is a brave choice. You could of course take a couple of bottles of water along and see how that goes.

The other option is to go to a beach hotel and pay to use their facilities. They offer a day pass which also includes lunch. We went to the Movenpick and negotiated a cut price that didn’t include lunch but still cost JD30 each (about AU$120 all up). The way we did it meant that we really were just going for a 30 min dip, so it is eye wateringly expensive. If we were to do it again, we would probably drop a day there, enjoying the pool and lunch to get better VFM (though there was so many flies around, this may be a challenge in itself)..

Back in Amman, our major discovery was the Chestnut Restaurant and Bar……… it has happy ‘hour’ from 12-6pm during which time booze is an acceptable price. Hurrah. Needless to say, we started out 36 hour trip to Colombia just a little worse for wear.

Jordan is a welcoming, varied, easy and interesting place to visit. We would go back again and would recommend a week or so to anyone interested in something a little different.

Trip to the Dead Sea

Back in Amman, our major discovery was the Chestnut Restaurant and Bar……… it has happy ‘hour’ from 12-6pm during which time booze is an acceptable price. Hurrah. Needless to say, we started out 36 hour trip to Colombia just a little worse for wear.

Jordan is a welcoming, varied, easy and interesting place to visit. We would go back again and would recommend a week or so to anyone interested in something a little different.

The other bits