Blogs from Jerash, North, Jordan, Middle East

Following hot in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia a chance go to Jordan was too good to turn down. We were enticed, as Lawrence was, by cheap flights with Ryanair from Paphos in Cyprus; £20 return for four nights, a hop of less than an hour. So, after six splendid days chilling on the beach in all-inclusive luxury we headed off on a little adventure. We landed in Amman and were whisked down south to Wadi Rum and Petra for the first few nights. If you click on the links there, you can read my accounts of those superb experiences. Jordan was so ‘full on’ I decided to keep the blogs separate or else this would have gone on too long. I’m picking up the journey here after our visits to the two mentioned above. ... read more

Our last day of the tour, we left the hotel around 8am and got to Jerash around 9am. Jerash is a very large ancient Roman site on par with Ephesus in Turkey. I didn’t even know about it until we had booked this tour. They even have a chariot race and gladiators show in the Hippodrome, but we didn’t have time for that. Lana took us all the way through the complex which took over 2 hours. Lana showed us a spot in the amphitheatre in the centre where you stand and your voice comes back amplified. This explained why we saw the group of youths singing in that spot in the Amman amphitheatre. We left Jerash around 11:30 and drove through Amman again to get to the Dead Sea around 1pm. All the resorts here ... read more

26 septembre 2015 - Jour 3 Aujourd'hui, direction le nord, une région beaucoup plus verte que ce que nous avons vu hier. Nous faisons une première halte à Umm Qais, une ancienne cité romaine construite avec un mélange de pierres blanches et noires qui lui donne un style très particulier. Comme d'habitude la ville est située à un endroit très stratégique, d'où l'on a une vue imprenable sur la vallée du Yarmouk, un affluent du Jourdain. C'est aussi ici qu'eut lieu le miracle des cochons réalisé par le Christ mais j'ai pas compris en quoi ça consistait. Puis direction la ville d'Ajlun et sa forteresse quasi-imprenable. L'édifice est très bien conservé et les techniques de défense sont extrêmement bien pensées en dépit de leur simplicité. C'est Saladin qui a fait construire ce fort pour arrêter les ... read more

Greetings all happy travellers! This day started off kind off shaky as our private driver was delayed due to blocked roads. They are, for natural reasons, not very used to snow here and it has created quite some difficulties for their infrastructure to the point where their military is involved now. This of course meant that we had to strike the desert castles from our itinerary which is a shame. With our driver delayed we decided to postpone our trip to Gerasa for a few hours and we started with the historical monuments in Amman instead. First we went to the theatres but they were still closed so we decided to take our chances and went to the citadel instead and luckily it was open! And I do mean luckily because it's a bit of a ... read more

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 ... read more