Jerash

Today we had breakfast at the hotel and had to be on the bus by 8am to head to the other side of Amman to the city of Jerash. This drive across Amman should take one & a half hours of traffic is in favour to us.

Jerash is a sprawling complex of collonaded streets, monumental arches, plazas, baths and theatres. One of the best preserved Roman sites in the world outside of Italy. It was during its heyday that its most impressive monuments were built, namely the temple of Artemis, who was the Greek goddess of hunting and the city’s patron goddess, and the temple of Zeus, which stood diametrically opposite, also upon a hill. The street of columns, in the exuberant Corinthian style, ran from North to South, connecting with streets that passed through East to West, all linked in at the South Tetrapylon, an ornamental construction at their junction through which trade flowed from the Orient to the cities of the Mediterranean and beyond. We had about three hours here and Omar guided us throw the area.

After seeing Jerash we headed back to Madaba city to see the St George's Greek Orthodox Church. The church was only built at the end of the 19th century, but during construction workers uncovered one of the most important surviving artistic relics of the Byzantine era – the Madaba Mosaic Map. Laid out by artisans in the 6th century, it was once an intricate map of holy land sites covering modern-day Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories, plus Egypt’s Sinai. Today only a quarter survives on the floor of the church, but even this fragment shows astounding detail, covering Jerusalem, the Dead Sea area, and a small portion of the Sinai.

After the visit to the church we said goodbye to our bus driver and Omar as this is where the Intrepid tour ends.
We grabbed some lunch with the group at the local mall, I tried some Turkish coffee that I’m happy I didn’t spend a fortune on!

The afternoon we relaxed at the hotel and organised to meet the group at 6:30pm for one last dinner together.
We went too a local resturant suggested by Omar that was near the church we visited earlier in the day. It was a good meal & a good way to end the tour. Czytaj więcej