Amman and Jerash

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Amman is certainly by far the most boring capital city we have been too. It is just too modern, the streets are clean, the traffic jams are small, no chaos, the people are friendly and there is not too much to see or do. We only went to a Roman theatre, Walked up to the old fort, marvelled at the third highest (126 meter) flagpole in the world and had some decent food and sweets. As usual the main ingredient in desserts or any sweet in the Middle East is sugar, sugar and more sugar which is then topped off with sugar water or honey. One of the local specialties which does not only contains sugar is made out of a mozzarella like cheese base with a crunchy top drenched with sugar water. Grown adults were queuing for that stuff and I couldn’t resist too. My waist must have gained a few cm while I was eating it but it has to be said that it was yummy. That’s Amman in a nutshell.

On the other hand 50 km to the north there is the ancient Roman city of Jerash. Jerash was back in the days a very important city which (luckily) was forgotten for the better part of 1000 years.
It now has the claim the fame of being considered to be one of the best preserved Roman cities in the world outside of Italy. Now that's sounds great to my ears. No surprise it lives up to the expectation. The entrance is through the massive Hadrians arch which then leads to the oval shaped Hippodrome in which the Romans watched chariot races. Even today the Jordanians put on a good show for the tourists with Jordanians’ dressed up as Roman legionaries doing military exercises and "real" chariot races.

Further along is a massive oval shaped "forum" which is surrounded by a series of massive pillars which form a colonnade. On the one side it is flanked by a huge temple dedicated to Zeus and a massive Roman theatre. Leading away from the forum is an over 500 meter long colonnaded street. The track marks the chariots and carts which bumped over the pavement long ago are still visible today and are a good reminder that people really lived here such a long time ago. Must have been quite a sight back then. The columns had different sizes to fit the houses behind. A variety of houses, small and massive temples, bathhouses and market halls were alongside the street and lay now in ruins.

Most of them are standing yet again thanks to a massive reconstruction effort and are in amazing condition. It took us hours to walk through the ruins and to marvel at the huge columns which for me were the most impressive sight in Jerash

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Photos

Sweets and more sweets
One was made with cheese some stuff, lots of sugar and sugar syrup

Worlds tallest unsupported flagpole
Pretty big huh

Comments

[Michelle]

knaffe
The cheesy dessert was almost certainly knaffe (or gnaffe), pronounced k'NAF-fay.