GO MIDDLE EAST:MOSES DID NOT need Specsavers, according to a cynical fellow traveller as we stood on Mount Nebo in Jordan where the great prophet saw not only the Promised Land but also as far as the Mediterranean, an impossibility for mere mortals like ourselves.
Standing in a landscape which has remained virtually unchanged for millennia, we were the ones who needed all the visual aids available to take in the breathtaking views over the desert.
On our coach ride we had passed small settlements and ragged Bedouin encampments with their herds of goats and donkeys. The only colour to break the monotony of the landscape was that of the bright mustard flowers.
At Madaba, a short drive away, the workers who used more than two million mosaic pieces to make what is thought to be the earliest map of the Holy Land probably needed glasses by the time they finished it in AD 560. The mosaic, housed in St George’s Church, is one of the great treasures of not only Jordan, but of the world.
This is but one of the amazing sights in this extraordinary country, where habitations have been identified from as far back as half a million years ago and where the first permanent villages of stone and mudbrick houses date to 8,000 BC.
This region was a crossroads between the ancient civilization of Egypt to the west and Mesopotamia to the east. In the first millennium BC, there were several small kingdoms here, with the Edomites ruling the south of the country, the Ammonites controlling the area around the capital Amman, once known as Philadelphia, and the Kingdom of Gilead, in the north.
The Arab Nabataeans set up their power base in southern Jordan at the end of the first millennium BC. Its capital was Petra, which finally succumbed to the Romans in the early 2nd century AD. The Romans controlled Jordan for several centuries until the Byzantine Empire, headquartered in Constantinople, took over for about 400 years, bringing Christianity to the region. In the seventh century, it became one of the heartlands of the Arab Islamic Empire – before the crusaders came along to complicate everything.
The Jordanians eventually got rid of their Ottoman rulers in a revolt which began in 1916, and the country became a protectorate of the British after the first World War. The British left in 1946 and the independent Hashemite Kingdom has been in place since then. The British influence is everywhere: in the English shop signs and the fact most Jordanians speak perfect English. They are a courteous and welcoming people and it is by far the most relaxed Arab country I have visited. Ease of travel is helped by the fact that the Jordanian dinar has a value similar to that of the euro.
But back to the sights. Our first night was spent in the lowest spot on earth, at the Marriott Resort and Spa. A two-mile drive from the capital, it is 1,312ft below sea level, on the shores of the Dead Sea. We ate Italian food while looking across the sea at the West Bank and the lights of Jerusalem in the distance, in balmy evening temperatures of around 18 degrees. In the morning, there were mud bath and mud pack treats for those who cared to have them.
It was quite a long coach ride to Petra from the Dead Sea, but it was more than worth it. Petra is special: unique in all its aspects for the historian, anthropologist, archaeologist, geologist, architect or naturalist. More or less abandoned after the 14th century, the site remained lost to the west until a Swiss traveller, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, dressed as an Arab, rediscovered it in 1812, sparking off worldwide interest.
It is the site of a major settlement in a 1,200m (3,940ft) long gorge. You enter from the floor of the gorge, via the Siq which is hemmed in by 80m (262ft) cliffs. The rocks glow in the light and there are cliffs, dams and cave dwellings cut out of the rock.
Then there is the Treasury, an architecturally unique monument 30m (98ft) wide and 43m (141ft) tall, carved by the Nabataean people in the 1st century BC as a tomb for one of its kings.
Influences are apparent from all over the Middle East, and beyond. Of particular note are the so-called Royal Tombs, which include the Palace tomb and the Urn tomb, plus the Sextius Florentinus tomb, carved around AD 126-130 in honour of the Roman governor of the area. The Romans had annexed the area in AD 106.
They left their mark elsewhere too: it is likely they ordered the construction of the theatre which was carved from solid rock, initially to seat 3,000 later extended to hold 7,000.
The colonnaded street, with its marble pavement is another Roman-inspired monument. At the bottom of the valley are restaurants and coffee shops and traders and hawkers, drawn from the people who lived there until 1985. When Petra was declared a World Heritage site, its residents were moved out to a nearby village and now offer horse, camel and donkey rides in and out of the valley. The final part of the journey is a steep climb to The High Place of Sacrifice, where there are more monuments and a stunning view of the site where Indiana Jones, The Last Crusade was filmed.
Petra should be left to the end of any visit to Jordan. It overshadows even the magnificence of sites such as Jerash, which has the best preserved Roman architecture in the Near East.
Only 48km (30 miles) from Amman, Jerash is amazing. You can still see the chariot tracks on the colonnaded street remodelled in the second century AD. I can also reveal that the sound of Irish voices singing Molly Malone from the centre of the South Theatre, built in AD 165, where even a whisper can be heard by the 1,600 who could be seated there – went down very well.
The site is beautifully preserved, from Hadrian’s Arch (AD 129) to the Temple of Zeus. The floor mosaic in the Church of St Genesius dates back to the dedication of the church in AD 611.
Amman itself is an impressive capital city, a mixture of modern and ancient, where nearly half of the country’s six million people can be found during the working week. Built on top of a series of mountains in the most fertile part of the country, it is a hub of high-tech and banking in the region and provides access to the rest of the Holy Land. Travel visas are required for visits.
Jordanian tourism has been badly hit by the Arab Spring, which has seen tourist numbers drop by 60 per cent. Fewer Americans are coming and the Europeans who arrive are not spending. There has never been a better time to visit.
JORDAN: travel info
We travelled to Jordan courtesy of Insight Vacations in association with BMI International airline. Travelling time was 10 hours including a two-hour stopover in Heathrow.
We stayed in Marriott Hotels during the trip, first in the five-star Jordan Valley Marriott on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The hotel has several restaurants and uses Dead Sea mud in its spa treatments.
The Marriott Petra Hotel is also a five-star hotel with views of the Petra mountains and the Amman Marriott is perched above the capital city.
Eat lunch in the Mazayen Nebo Restaurant or the Basin Restaurant at the foot of the valley in Petra. The Lebanese restaurant in Jerash provided an excellent lunch. In Taybet Zaman Village in Petra you can eat a meal served in a Bedouin tent and the main dish, mansaf, is eaten by hand. In Amman city, the Deir Al-Amar Lebanese restaurant was very pleasant.
A visit to Petra is a must, but if possible leave it to the end of the trip because it tends to overpower the rest of what is on offer. Do not miss Jerash with its Roman ruins and visit the Dead Sea sites for pampering.
Prices: Insight Vacation tour prices start from €899 per person. The company will arrange return flights to Jordan, from €400. Group numbers are limited to 40, giving more legroom in the deluxe coaches which is needed as road trips can be long.