Madaba and the Dead Sea

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Staying in the largely Christian town of Madeba not too far from Amman. Spent a few hours this morning looking at the sights of the town. It’s known for the late Roman and Byzantine mosaics that have been found under houses here in the town centre. Some lovely mosaics, the most well-known is a map of the area in the main St George’s church which shows biblical places on either side of the Jordan river, including the city of Jerusalem. They think that the congregation would have stood around the mosaic while the pastor read biblical with the pictorial map to help them see where the stories happened.

In the afternoon we took our hire car out for its first trip, to the Dead Sea. It was a steep descent, up here the land is quite fertile but soon it becomes very barren. There would have been good views but again for us they were spoilt by the dust in the air, there was no view of the Dead Sea until we were upon it. Went to the only non-resort that gives access to the beach, called Amman Beach, a costly 16JD each for access to a clean beach, with very basic shower and changing facilities. It was fun to lie in the Dead Sea, lie back and you float with no effort. In fact it was a challenge to do anything other than lie on your back, as soon as you try anything else you roll back. It definitely wasn’t the most romantic place to spend an afternoon on the beach but it was fun. Lots of tourists and locals there.

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