Amman and other Jordan Things to Do Tips

Amman is the only big city in the Kingdom of Jordan, with about 1,5 million inhabitants. Of course it is the capital. The city is wonderfully situated on and between seven hills (Jabal = Hill), and the houses are like a white carpet over this hilly landscape.

The history of Amman starts in the 3rd century B.C., when the Ancient Greeks founded a place called Philadelphia on top of a hill. Ever since different cultures have had their base in the city, and almost every culture left its traces. The Greeks left the old Hercules Temple on top of the Jabal Al-Qala'a. The Romans built a Forum, and a great Amphitheatre at the Jabal Al-Jaufa, the Islamic culture that followed the Romans, built the city you basically see nowadays, with several great mosques with the King Abdullah Mosque as highlight at the Jabal Al-Abdali. The modern, western areas of Amman are at the Southwest of the City. This is where the malls, the big hotels and the embassies are.

Amman may not have a lot of big attractions, it's definitely a must to spend at least a full day in the city. It's a great experience to see the sun set over the city and to see all the houses turn from white into yellow and from yellow into orange. It's fantastic to walk in the Souq at the Jabal Al-Amman, to try out the illiterate taxi-driver, to smoke a shisha and to talk with the surprisingly friendly Jordanians.

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Address: Amman, Jordan

East from Amman you will find several so called "Desert Castles": great constructions that were built somewhere in the middle of the desert hundreds of years ago, with different purposes. Most of these Desert Castles were meant as a restingplace for traders following routes through the desert towards Greece, Yemen, Persia or Egypt.

The best kept building is Qasr Al-Kharana. It's situated at about 60 kilometres southeast from Amman. In the middle of a rough rockdesert, all of a sudden a mighty building shows up. The castle is square with a length and a width of 35 metres and walls of 10 metres high and a thickness of up to 3 metres. The castle has small towers at each corner, very small windows (or shooting holes) and a great entrance.

Inside the castle there are lots and lots of small rooms. The Qasr Al-Kharana has two floors, and at least 50 rooms inside its walls. This enormous amount of rooms, and the fact that most of them are nicely decorated, explaines why scientists are heavily doubting if this building was used as a defending fortress or as a resting place for traders. Until day they are not sure about that.

You are not officially asked to pay to enter the Qasr, but it's very normal to give the guard at the entrance a small tip.

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Address: Kharan, Jordan

At 20 kilometres northeast from the Qasr Al-Kharana, an even more special castle is situated: Qasr Amra. This building is on the UNESCO world heritage list. It was built around 712 A.D. in the time of the Umayyad Caliph Wahid I.

From the outside the building is not spectacular at all: a square box with a few domes on top of it, surrounded by endless desert. In front of the castle there is a small waterwell, and for the rest you don't see a thing.

But inside that is so much different. The Qasr Amra originally was used as a hunting base for the Caliph. He went here to relax: to hunt for animals, to take a bath and probably to enjoy the company of some women.

As soon as you enter the building you will see the beauty in the central livingroom. This is where Wahid I stayed, sitting on his thrown. Next to the livingroom there are two small bedrooms and in the central room itself you can see lots of great frescos: paintings of hunting scenes: lions, deer, camels, of fruits and of nude women.

Left from the entrance the most special part of the building is situated: the bath complex. In the middle of a dry desert, the water from the well is heated up by an oven, and taken into the three rooms of the complex. The first room is the apodyterium (cold room) the second room is the tepidarium (warm room) and the last one the caldarium (steam room). Every single room has its own water system, and every one has great paintings at its roof. The fresco in the caldarium is really special: he you can see the stars of the northern skies being painted at the dome of the building: the first time that a starry heaven is imagined as a dome instead of a flat surface.

Again, you are not asked to pay for you entrance, but it is very normal to give the guard a small tip.

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Address: Wadi Amra, Jordan

The small city of Azraq is mostly famous because of its important junction of highways between Jordan, Iraq and Saudi-Arabia. The Iraqi border is 250 km. away from here, and Saudi-Arabia only 50km.

But you can also visit an old monument in the city: the next Desert Castle: Qasr Al-Azraq. This one is much less spectacular then the other two, but that is mostly because this one is much and much older. The original castle was built in the 3rd century by the Roman, and the Umayyides enlargened it in the 6th century. After their period the building slowly became the ruin you can visit nowadays.

The large castle is completely made out of black basalt. You can clearly see the differences between the part that was built by the Romans and the Umayyides. The Roman part has perfectly fitting square bricks, the other part is lucky it's still standing.

There are two special things about the Qasr Al-Azraq:
1) The frontdoor is enormous: it is made out of basalt and it weighs 3000 kilos. It still moves perfectly in its basalt hinges.
2) The famous T.E. Lawrence stayed in this castle in the winter of 1917, before he started his fight against the Turks in the North.

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Address: Azraq, Jordan

The city of Jarash (also known as Gerasa) is situated at about 40 kilometres north from Amman, and is one of the oldest cities in the country. It probably was originally founded by Alexander the Great, during one of his travels to the east. This was in the 3rd century B.C. The most important period however was reached in the 2nd century A.D. during the Roman Period of the city.

The city you see nowadays is the city that was built in that Roman Period. Looking at the way the buildings and the streets are kept, it is easy to see the comparison with the famous city of Pompeii in Italy. It's amazing to see how well things are kept here for so many centuries. Some of the best things to see in the city are:
- The collonaded street, Cardo Maximus. Here you can see the original pavements, huge pillars at both sides of the road and even the sewers that were made under the street is still intact.
- The central Forum. This central square is where the Cardo Maximus starts. The oval Forum is surrounded by tens of tall pillars and offers you a great sight of the rest of the city.
- The ancient Theatre: this is the best place to look around the city. The theatre is built at the highest point of Jarash. In ancient days 3.000 people enjoyed theatre-plays in this building, and the sound inside is still amazing.
- The hippodrome is a huge building just outside the citywalls. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see Ben Hur racing on these tracks. It used to keep 15.000 spectators during the horse-races that were organized here.
- Hadrian's Arch. This big arch at the beginning of the archeaological site was built to celebrate the visit of the Roman emperor in 129 A.D. He was the one that put a lot of effort in the construction of the city you can still admire today.

These sites are only the highlights of the huge area that is already discovered in Jarash. They are still excavating more every year, but even today the area is big enough to spend a full day inside.

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Address: Jarash/Jerash/Gerasa, Jordan

The most southern city of Jordan also is the only and therefore the biggest harbour of the country, it is the only place with coral reefs, with beaches and it is an area with lots of borders nearby. Aqaba is only 20 kilometres away from Saudi-Arabia and Eqypt and even closer to Israel (or Palestine like the Jordanians would say). All these countries are situated around the Gulf of Aqaba, the most northern part of the Red Sea.

The city of Aqaba is the place to be in Jordan if you want to enjoy the sun, the sea and the sand. Lots of modern, Western hotels are situated here, which all have their private beaches. The city has a vivid centre where you can find hundreds of little shops, and surprisingly hardly any tourist shops. Instead walking around at night is a great way to experience the local nightlife where people rest in the daytime when it's too hot outside, and get out when it cools down.

Aqaba has only one old attraction to visit. The old fortress that was built in the 14th century, once was used as a castle to protect the trade routes that ended here, and later was used as a Crusaders' Castle by Saladin. In the start of the 20th century T.E. Lawrence conquered the fortress and beated the Turks in Aqaba. This building is not spectacular to visit, but between all the relaxing it can be nice to have a small dose of culture.

But the most important attraction of the city is under water: the coral reefs! There are different place where you can dive, but the Royal Diving Centre is the most popular. From here you can dive and see the most colourful corals and fish.

Aqaba is easy to reach by plane directly from Amman (40 mins flight) or by car in a 5 hours drive.

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Address: Aqaba, Jordan

Almost the complete south and east of Jordan is desert. In some places the desert is boring: flat and empty, in some places it's very spectacular with rocks, mountains and dunes. But nowhere the desert is more beautiful then in the Wadi Rum.

An hour drive northeast from Aqaba you will enter this famous area, that still officially belongs to its authenthic inhabitants: the bedouins. Most of them don't live in the traditional way anymore, but in normal houses in villages, but some of them still use camels to move around and use their caracteristic black tents to sleep in.

The Wadi Rum is famous for its impressively beautiful landscape. A trip through this area will be organized by the bedouins that can take you out by camel or by the modern "toyota-camel". You will never forget what you will see during your trip.

After a 10 minutes drive by jeep you will be completely away from the outside world already. Everywhere you look you see steep, red mountains come out of the desertsoil, that is covered with orange rocks and sand. Once in a while you see some brave bushes or a small tree, and besides that you only see the some yellow-orange-red and brown colours.

Make sure that if you make a trip through the Wadi Rum, you do it right before sunset. As soon as the sun sets the colours get even more spectacular and the shadows get longer and longer. You will also get the chance to drink a cup of delicious tea in a bedouins tent, to see old rockcarvings, to roll down a high sanddune, and with a bit of luck you'll also see some "wild" camels in the desert.

At night it is possible to have dinner in a bedouin camp or to sleep in a tent in the desert, but the best thing is for free: I have never been to a place where the stars are so numerous and so bright as here in the Wadi Rum.

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Address: Wadi Rum, Jordan

Trying to tell about Petra in only one tip actually is a huge insult for the greatness of this place. Petra is one of the places that is often mentioned as one of the modern Wonders of the World. I've been to other places on that list: the Acropolis in Athens and the Borobudur, but neither of these places can even get close to the beauty of Petra. Petra deserves much more then only one tip, and even though I'vetried I can't even put the short introduction in only one tip. I will try to create a complete page about Petra soon.

A visit to Petra starts with the annoying feeling of being fooled by the bedouins at the entrance. The entrance is expensive and it is compulsary to pay for a horse-ride to the city, even though you don't actually ride the horses. Guides are very pushy to sell you their services and before you know you spent a lot of money already.

But as soon as you enter the Siq, the narrow gorge towards the city itself, you forget about those problems. This 1,5 kilometres long gorge is a great piece of nature, with steep cliffs at both sides with very multi-coloured stone: from blue to yellow and from white to red. After a walk of about 15 minutes along this path, you will suddenly stand face-to-face with the highlight of the city: Al Khazneh, the Treasury.

This Treasury is a 40 metres high sculpture that is completely carved out in the sandstone, and that has the shape of an ancient Greek temple. It's amazing to see how the details of the building are kept throughout the centuries, and you should imagine yourself how difficult it must have been to start the "construction" of this Treasury, starting with a rough cliff and to end up with such a beautiful creation.

After this Treasury you can go around the corner and you will see that Petra is so much more then only this building: immediately around the corner you will see more simple graves in several layers, a theatre that is completely carved out in the rocks, and at the right side the most impressive wall of the entire city: the Wall of Kings.

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Address: Wadi Musa, Jordan

This Wall of Kings has four great sculpture that used to be graves for important persons. From a far you will see the rough shapes of these graves, and when you get closer you can see clearly what the winderosion have done with these wall: all the sculpture are polished into round shapes and you realize that slowly nature is taking over again in Petra.

After this Wall of Kings you enter the Roman part of the city. For a short period they have been ruling over the area, building their building in their own way. They never carved them out of the rocks like the Nabateans did, but instead they built them out of bricks. The result is that the Nabatean construction still stand and that the Roman part is almost completely destroyed.

After this area you can choose if you want to go to the museums of the city, or to the famous Monastery, that is told to be just as beautiful as the Treasury. I decided to find my own way, and I climbed the first mountain I faced: the Umm Al-Beyyara. As soon as I reached the back of this mountain I entered the Petra like how it looked like when it was first rediscovered in the 19th century. Here you don't see any tourists: litterly didn't see any for 45 minutes! And everywhere you look you see houses carved out in the sandstone, wonderful facades of graves, stairs, lots of goats and the most beautiful vegetation.

After you get back to the front of this mountain you get to see more of the not-so-famous buildings and you can end up on top of the Great Sacrifice Area. This area on top of another hill offers you a great view of the complete valley of Petra. Using the stairs at the front of this hill you can get back to the beginning of the tour, next to the theatre, realising that the full day you've spent in Petra that day is only an enormously small part of the 40 square kilometres that is the complete surface of the city.

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Address: Wadi Musa, Jordan

At about a 2 hrs drive south from Amman, you'll find the Crusaders Castle of Kerak. High on a hill, overlooking the complete region, a huge citadel was built. All around the current town of Kerak you can still see remainings of the original citywalls. At the westside of the citadel you can visit the ruins of the old castle that was built here in the 12th century.

The history of Kerak starts before Christ. Because the hill is situated right next to the important traderoute "Kings Highway" it had a very strategic position. It was used by the caravans to find safety during their travels, and later the Greeks and the Roman used it too. The name Kerak comes from the Aramaic word "Karka" that means Walled City.

The current fortress was built by the Crusaders. They discovered the great position of Kerak in the 12th century and in 1132 the first castle was built. Reynault de Chatillon was the most famous person that lived here in this period. After several battles around Kerak, Saladin captured the castle in 1188. Instead of demolishing the building he decided to strengthen it, and until the end of the Crusades it stayed in Arab hands.

After this period the castle was not used anymore and lots of houses around it were built with the Castle's stones. Today a big ruin is left, but nevertheless it's still very easy to imagine its greatness.

Inside the castle a huge labyrinth of corridors and rooms was built. Churches and later mosques were built inside the walls, diningrooms, but also bakeries, prisons, bassins to collect rainwater: everything inside the citadel was designed to be able to survive 4 months inside the walls without getting hungry or thirsty during battles.

When you visit the Castle of Kerak you should climb to the top of the fortress and enjoy the great view from there: you can see the Dead Sea during clear weather and follow the Kings Highway for many kilometres. And if you want to know a bit about the life in Reynault's and Saladin's period you should of course watch the movie "Kingdom of Heaven".

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Address: Kerak/Karak, Jordan