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Published: November 5th 2013
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Hadrian's Arch
...entrance to Jerash... October 15, 2013
Having wrapped up our hang in Aqaba it was time to get back to Amman, we still had Jerash and the Dead Sea to check out before we left for Greece in a couple of days...hopped the local bus and made it back mid-afternoon, enough time to organize the next day's travels...
Settled with a driver who would take us first to Jerash, let us explore for the morning and then drive us through the Jordan Valley to see the Dead Sea in the afternoon...we had chatted with a couple of tour companies who were reluctant to combine these two destinations, telling us that the driver would have to backtrack through Amman to get to the Dead Sea from Jerash and that it would take too long...this is nonsense, if you go and wish to do the same it is less than an hour to Jerash, ask the tour company to go through the Valley instead of coming back through Amman (they said it would take 2 1/2 hours to go this route, only took us 1 1/2...). We spent a good three hours at Jerash, made it to the Dead Sea by about
1pm and were back in Amman around 3:30pm...
At any rate a beautiful drive north to Jerash...it was the holiday Eid this day, and a big tradition is for families to purchase and cook sheep as part of the festivities, so all along the roads were pens filled with sheep...and of course they needed to be prepped so saw more than one of them being "prepared" shall we say...
Arrived at the ruins of Jerash around 8:30am, only to discover we were the first ones there! We had beaten out the bus tours, even the souvenir stalls hadn't opened...fantastic...so paid our admission and headed for Hadrian's Arch, gateway to the site...
The site is huge, so allow yourself 3 to 4 hours at least to check it out...we did it in three and were content, although the Chariot Race normally put on by the Jordanian army (a re-enactment of Chariot Races and armed combat for the tourists in the Hippodrome) was sadly not being offered and hadn't for some time, I guess a casualty of the drop in tourism...I was disappointed, would have been a really cool thing to see but oh well...
The site itself
All the world's a stage...
...aspiring thespian (not!)...(KC) is magnificent, and in great shape...the oval Forum is beautifully surrounded by columns, and the main street (Cardo Maximus) leads away from the Plaza towards the North Gate and it too is lined with fantastic columns, most of which are still intact...add on these several churches, bath houses, Temple of Artemis, a couple of Theatres and the Temple of Zeus and it is quite a site to say the least...I think my favourite was the North Theatre, seemingly perfectly intact and a great place to sit in one of the upper rows and contemplate life as it must have been way back when...
I have been to a few Roman sites in my travels and this is one of the best, really enjoyed poking around the various sites and ruins...
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