Thursday, August 15, 2019

November 29th: Jerash and Amman

I know, it's been a really long time since I've updated this. The past few months have been a bit crazy (and I'll eventually have it all updated in here). In the meantime, back to Jordan last November!

After a bit of sleep and some tasty breakfast at the hotel, we went to the lobby to meet our guide and driver for the day. It was time to go explore Jerash!

Jerash has been inhabited for thousands of years; they've found human skulls there that date back to 5500BC. The ruins that stand today are mostly from the Greco-Roman period, which ranges from a few hundred years BC to a few hundred years AD. The first thing you come to when you arrive is Hadrian's Arch.

It's pretty impressive.   :)

Almost as soon as we passed through the arch, we came to a set of ruins with a beautifully restored mosaic floor. I always love seeing stuff like this in the ruins; it's fun to imagine what the building must have been like at its peak.

After checking out the mosaic, we walked over to the Hippodrome. They used to race horses and chariots here; it was really neat to walk along part of the old track.

The Oval Plaza was a short walk away. I can't imagine what this must have looked like when the city was hopping; we were among only a handful of other people wandering around when we were there.

You could see the Southern Theater off to the far side of the plaza.

We left the plaza and made our way down the main road further into the ruins...

...and soon came to the remains of what used to be a shopping center.

There were a number of smaller rooms off of a center area that used to have a fountain. We wandered around a little bit, then made our way back to the road to continue on.

You could still see the grooves worn into the road from the chariots. Stuff like this is so cool to me.  :)

We wandered a bit more...

...past a lot more ruins...

...and past the Nymphaeum. It used to be a public fountain, and our guide pointed out some of the details and drains that were still there (though I unfortunately didn't get a good picture of that).

Off in the distance, you could see the modern city through the ruins.

We eventually came to the Grand Staircase...

...and climbed it to...

...the Temple of Artemis.

The views from the top of the hill were pretty neat, too. This was probably one of the least crowded landmarks we've visited on any of our trips; there weren't many other people there, so we could really take our time and enjoy it.


I think our guide said that they think there used to be houses along the hill here. I can't imagine what might be hiding under all of the grass and dirt; stuff like that fascinates me.

A short walk away was Three Churches. These are the remains of a few Byzantine churches, and the mosaics are gorgeous. (The guy working down on the floor might have my dream job - I'd love to restore mosaics like that!)


We hung out and watched for a few minutes, then eventually moved on and started making our way back to the main entrance.

I loved seeing the modern city through the ruins.   :)


We walked past the Oval Plaza, and made our way to...

...a theater. There were a couple guys playing the bagpipes and drums inside, which was kind of crazy. Our guide showed us a spot in the middle that had some really cool acoustics. You could also still see the seat and row numbers carved into the benches.

We made our way out of the theater and wandered a little more, with a quick stop to enjoy the view down the main road.

We eventually picked our way back down...

..through the plaza, and made our way back to the car for the ride back to Amman. We still had more to see!

Our next stop was the Citadel. It's in the middle of Amman, and may have been inhabited since the 1600s BC. Some of the ruins have been uncovered and restored...

...plus, it has an incredible view of the city.   :)

I thought this was one of the coolest things about Amman - since the buildings weren't allowed to be higher than a certain height, you could see forever. Just miles of building-covered hills. It was so cool.

There were some pretty cool ruins here, too. This is the Temple of Hercules; it sits near the top of the hill.

The Umayyad Palace was nearby...

...and there were other ruins off to the side, overlooking the city.

There were more ruins and tiles and pieces of statues laid out in front of the museum on the hill.

The museum was small but had some really cool things!

They even had a hand grenade. There were all sorts of neat odds and ends inside.

We eventually finished wandering through the museum and the ruins, and met our guide and driver to continue on.

Our next stop wasn't very far away, but the ride to get there was crazy. We made our way through tiny steep streets with loads of traffic and eventually made our way to...

...the Roman Theater. It's from the 2nd century, and sits near the middle of the city.

It was cool to see people just hanging out and wandering around. We peeked at two small museums here, then made our way back to the car for one last stop.

A short ride through more crazy streets later, I was eating a delicious falafel sandwich on the sidewalk. It seemed like they made it in a panini press; it was really good. After we stuffed our faces, our driver took us back to the hotel, where we said goodbye and thank you. It had been a neat tour!

It was midafternoon when we got back, so we decided to take a time out for some snacks and mint lemonade. Everything was really good. We made our way back to the room for a bit after that, and took a little time to reorganize our things and hang out.

We went back up to the roof after a bit, and got there just in time to catch the sunset call to prayer.

And, of course, the sunset.   :)


After watching the sunset, we made our way over to Copas Central for some happy hour wine and tapas before wandering around the neighborhood a bit. We didn't wander very far before I heard something that caught my attention.

It was bagpipes! This band was playing in front of a church, and there were a bunch of people all hanging around and dancing and having a good time. It was really cool; we hung out for a few minutes, too, before slowly making our way back to the hotel. We spent the rest of the night doing laundry, watching Italian game shows, and eating leftover hummus. It would have been fun to spend more time exploring the city, but we had some big plans for the next couple days!

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