While we were in Israel, it was a good opportunity for us to take a short tour into Jordan. We found a tour company that offered a four day tour, along with assistance in crossing the border. (Much paperwork, Covid tests, etc.) We started our tour in Jerusalem and traveled north to a border crossing in the Northern part of Israel- the best crossing for tourists. This meant that we basically re-traced the route we took on our two day trip up to Nazareth. After the border crossing, we continued on to Jerash, a Jordan city of around 50,000 people that has one of the most impressive Roman cities in the world.
We started at Hadrian’s Arch, seen at the bottom of the map. We then walked through the Hippodrome, and into the main plaza. 
Hadrian’s Arch, built to honor the visit of Emperor Hadrian to Jerash in 129/130 AD.
View of the main forum from the Temple of Zeus with the Cardo, or main street, stretching out behind.
The view along the Cardo
Off to one side of the Cardo was a complex of buildings, this is the butcher’s market at the end.
There were two large theaters, next photo, is the North theater.
Spring was a wonderful time to visit. Temperatures are typically low 70s, compared to near 90s that are typical during summer. (22C vs 31C) And, since tourism was greatly reduced due to Covid, we felt like we had the city nearly to ourselves.
These are some of the buildings on the West side of the city. One of the theaters can be seen on the right background.
Some of the details along the main Cardo.
The Jerash nymphaeum, a fountain dedicated to nymphs, especially the nymphs of springs.
Temple of Artemis
We spent about half a day wandering the city. With the tours in Israel and Jordan, along with walks in Jerusalem, we are amazed at how much we’ve been walking on roads laid down a couple of thousand years ago. Many still with chariot or cart ruts a couple of inches deep worn into the stone.
The archeological work in Jerash is still continuing. Much more of the ancient city is still buried, and excavations are still continuing, having been started in 1925.
That evening we were taken to a hotel in Amman, (from “Ammonite”) the capital of Jordan. We had dinner and breakfast at the hotel, and with each meal, a hot, fresh thin baked bread was served. It wasn’t until morning that Deb noticed that they were making it just outside the restaurant. The baker starts will small balls of dough, then flattens them out by hand.
Next, he applies the bread dough to a stuffed blue bag.
He then picks up the bag by the back, and “whomps” it onto the inside wall of the oven, which looks sort of like a cement mixer.
After a few minutes of baking, the bread is ready to be peeled off the wall of the oven, and served fresh. Delicious!
The next day we headed to Mount Nebo, an elevated ridge in Jordon overlooking the Dead Sea. This mount is listed in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land before his death. Jerusalem is on the far side of the Dead Sea, across from the right side (North side) of of the sea.
Also on the Mount were flowering plants common in Jordan.
Mount Nebo also had a museum showing some of the detailed mosaics that were found at the site.
Details of one of the mosaics. The language is Greek. Greek and Latin were the two main common languages used throughout the Roman kingdom, along with regional languages.
The terrain of Jordan varied dramatically, from stark deserts to green valleys.
Well, that’s the first day and a half of our tour. A second post will soon cover the second half.
(A quick note on photographs- we have always downsized the pictures used on our blog to make pages faster loading. But over time we have increased the image size from 800×600 pixels at the start, to 1200×900 for the past couple of years. We just bumped the standard image size up to 1200×900 for this post, since most people now have reasonable internet speeds. So hopefully you will be able to see more details in the photos if you are using a higher resolution monitor)
Tim & Deb
