Frozen Petra
Happy New Year...and I’m still playing catch up.
In February of last year we flew to Jordan for a week. Jordan had been high on my list of places to visit for a few reasons: Petra and the Dead Sea, the food, the people (we have met a lot of Jordanians in Riyadh and they are all smart, driven, and very fashion-forward), walking where Jesus walked, and did I mention Petra? We ended up loving Jordan even more than we thought we would.
We flew into Amman and stayed in a bare-bones Airbnb in a beautiful area near the US embassy. A bit to my surprise, Amman was a great place for the kids. We spent an entire day at the Royal Automobile Museum and the children’s museum, both of which I would highly recommend if you take kids. One afternoon was spent shopping on Rainbow Street. Aliya and I visited the Jordan River Foundation showroom, an organization that promotes community empowerment, and organizes projects involving Bedouin women with an emphasis on being environmentally friendly. I love organizations like this and had to hold myself back from buying everything. We then had one of the best meals of our lives at Sufra, also on Rainbow Street. Amman was beautiful for us, charming, and a welcome respite from some of the more austere restrictions we have at home.
From Amman we took a day trip north to Jerash to see Roman ruins. It was a truly incredible site with an extensive amount of ruins in—what I found to be—remarkably good condition, especially considering there didn’t seem to be any kind of “no touching” policy. I am a little embarrassed to say that we took advantage of this laxity and had Ollie and Aliya climbing all over Roman ruins all day. But it was amazing to interact with the site in that way. For reference, the Arch of Hadrain (pictured) is from the second century. Also pictured are 56 standing columns that surround a limestone plaza; it really is amazing to experience all of it still standing and imagine the civilization that used to inhabit it.
Before heading back to Amman we stopped in Madaba to see ancient mosaics. The kids have been learning about mosaics and making some of their own, so it was exciting for them to see some that are centuries old. We even saw the famous 6th century mosaic map of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Madaba was worth the visit for us. That night we had dinner at an old, refurbished Ottoman settlement that has an amazing restaurant, Kan Zaaman. We introduced the kids to authentic Jordanian cuisine and felt like we were eating inside a castle, it was perfect.
Visting the proposed sites (there are multiple) of Jesus Christ’s baptism was an incredible experience that I’m sure I was not altogether ready for. We drove to the entrance and then got on a tour bus, which was mainly filled with visitors of the Russian Orthodox Church. We first visited the site of Christ’s baptism as proposed by Jordan. There is no longer a flowing river at this particular site (first photo) and when I asked about it I was told this was due to Israel’s river dam and meddling. I have not been able to verify this, but the politics of the whole thing really interested me. Intensely so because there is another proposed baptism site just across the border in Israel, and we went to see that one next. It is far more robust, attracting far greater numbers of tourists. It was interesting to see the differences. We were on the Jordanian side, we walked down some old wooden steps to a large wooden patio right on the banks of the River Jordan, nothing fancy. Just across the river in Israel was a massive, modern building, and beautiful concrete walkway and railing that led down to the river. It was quite the contrast. At this point our Russian Orthodox friends changed into white dresses and dunked themselves in the freezing water (like seven or eight times, I can’t remember but it was many times). I found the politics to be pretty distracting, if not fascinating, and the spiritual aspect was a bit lost on me. Still an incredible experience.
Petra. I loved every aspect of this trip but Petra was definitely the show-stopper for me. It was freezing. Literally zero degrees Celsius and it was threatening to snow. But we decided to bundle up and brave it. We hired a guide and had the kids start out on horseback, but eventually they wanted to walk. So we hiked through this beautiful rocky gorge as our guide told us all about the history of Petra, a rock-cut capital that was inhabited since prehistoric times. Much of the rock is a red sandstone and I found it to be absolutely beautiful. And then you come out of this rocky gorge and there is the Treasury and it is completely magnificent. By that time the kids were freezing, but had been amazing up to that point. Wade and I really wanted to go on and see more of the site, but after visiting a few tombs Aliya was so done (we couldn’t even get her warm with Wade’s North Face). So we decided to get a horse and race back through the rocky passage. I think the kids would have been able to go on if it hadn’t been so cold, but it really was freezing and shortly after we checked into our hotel it started to snow. We stayed at the Marriott Petra and I would recommend it to everyone. It was very nice and comfortable, but I think the view from the hotel patio is what captured me. It was also lovely to drive through the city above Petra, it’s a gorgeous corner of the world.
Our entire trip to Jordan was a highlight of our time out here in the Middle East. There is so much to do, and see, and experience! I could have spent the entire week in Petra, and maybe next time we will.
PS we rented a car and that worked out really well for us to visit Jerash, Madaba, and holy sites while having a home-base in Amman.
In February of last year we flew to Jordan for a week. Jordan had been high on my list of places to visit for a few reasons: Petra and the Dead Sea, the food, the people (we have met a lot of Jordanians in Riyadh and they are all smart, driven, and very fashion-forward), walking where Jesus walked, and did I mention Petra? We ended up loving Jordan even more than we thought we would.
We flew into Amman and stayed in a bare-bones Airbnb in a beautiful area near the US embassy. A bit to my surprise, Amman was a great place for the kids. We spent an entire day at the Royal Automobile Museum and the children’s museum, both of which I would highly recommend if you take kids. One afternoon was spent shopping on Rainbow Street. Aliya and I visited the Jordan River Foundation showroom, an organization that promotes community empowerment, and organizes projects involving Bedouin women with an emphasis on being environmentally friendly. I love organizations like this and had to hold myself back from buying everything. We then had one of the best meals of our lives at Sufra, also on Rainbow Street. Amman was beautiful for us, charming, and a welcome respite from some of the more austere restrictions we have at home.
From Amman we took a day trip north to Jerash to see Roman ruins. It was a truly incredible site with an extensive amount of ruins in—what I found to be—remarkably good condition, especially considering there didn’t seem to be any kind of “no touching” policy. I am a little embarrassed to say that we took advantage of this laxity and had Ollie and Aliya climbing all over Roman ruins all day. But it was amazing to interact with the site in that way. For reference, the Arch of Hadrain (pictured) is from the second century. Also pictured are 56 standing columns that surround a limestone plaza; it really is amazing to experience all of it still standing and imagine the civilization that used to inhabit it.
Before heading back to Amman we stopped in Madaba to see ancient mosaics. The kids have been learning about mosaics and making some of their own, so it was exciting for them to see some that are centuries old. We even saw the famous 6th century mosaic map of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Madaba was worth the visit for us. That night we had dinner at an old, refurbished Ottoman settlement that has an amazing restaurant, Kan Zaaman. We introduced the kids to authentic Jordanian cuisine and felt like we were eating inside a castle, it was perfect.
Visting the proposed sites (there are multiple) of Jesus Christ’s baptism was an incredible experience that I’m sure I was not altogether ready for. We drove to the entrance and then got on a tour bus, which was mainly filled with visitors of the Russian Orthodox Church. We first visited the site of Christ’s baptism as proposed by Jordan. There is no longer a flowing river at this particular site (first photo) and when I asked about it I was told this was due to Israel’s river dam and meddling. I have not been able to verify this, but the politics of the whole thing really interested me. Intensely so because there is another proposed baptism site just across the border in Israel, and we went to see that one next. It is far more robust, attracting far greater numbers of tourists. It was interesting to see the differences. We were on the Jordanian side, we walked down some old wooden steps to a large wooden patio right on the banks of the River Jordan, nothing fancy. Just across the river in Israel was a massive, modern building, and beautiful concrete walkway and railing that led down to the river. It was quite the contrast. At this point our Russian Orthodox friends changed into white dresses and dunked themselves in the freezing water (like seven or eight times, I can’t remember but it was many times). I found the politics to be pretty distracting, if not fascinating, and the spiritual aspect was a bit lost on me. Still an incredible experience.
Petra. I loved every aspect of this trip but Petra was definitely the show-stopper for me. It was freezing. Literally zero degrees Celsius and it was threatening to snow. But we decided to bundle up and brave it. We hired a guide and had the kids start out on horseback, but eventually they wanted to walk. So we hiked through this beautiful rocky gorge as our guide told us all about the history of Petra, a rock-cut capital that was inhabited since prehistoric times. Much of the rock is a red sandstone and I found it to be absolutely beautiful. And then you come out of this rocky gorge and there is the Treasury and it is completely magnificent. By that time the kids were freezing, but had been amazing up to that point. Wade and I really wanted to go on and see more of the site, but after visiting a few tombs Aliya was so done (we couldn’t even get her warm with Wade’s North Face). So we decided to get a horse and race back through the rocky passage. I think the kids would have been able to go on if it hadn’t been so cold, but it really was freezing and shortly after we checked into our hotel it started to snow. We stayed at the Marriott Petra and I would recommend it to everyone. It was very nice and comfortable, but I think the view from the hotel patio is what captured me. It was also lovely to drive through the city above Petra, it’s a gorgeous corner of the world.
Our entire trip to Jordan was a highlight of our time out here in the Middle East. There is so much to do, and see, and experience! I could have spent the entire week in Petra, and maybe next time we will.
PS we rented a car and that worked out really well for us to visit Jerash, Madaba, and holy sites while having a home-base in Amman.
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