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| The most famous of all Jordan's many places of interest, Petra was the result of the advanced culture of the Nabateans, who carved a city straight out of the red limestone rock. Much of Petra's appeal comes from its spectacular setting, deep inside a narrow desert gorge, or siq, that has walls 200 metres high. Situated on an important trade route, the city flourished, though the Nabateans were forced to become experts at water conservation and relied on an ingenious and intricate complex of dams and water. Though most famous for its imposing treasury - seen in an Indiana Jones film - there are many more treasures that the city can boast, including many hundreds of buildings, temples, palaces and tombs.
Petra in one day: what should I see?
Admission costs a stiff JD21 (£17) for a one-day ticket. Two-day and three-day tickets are better value at JD26/£24.70 and JD31/£29.50 respectively. However, if time is short then take the stony track, which heads down from the ticket gate between eroded rocky domes into the Siq (Arabic for "canyon"), the principal route into the ancient city. The path twists and turns between towering sandstone cliffs for just under a mile, often little more than an arm-stretch wide. With your eye softened to the Siq's flowing, natural curves, encountering the precisely rendered, clean lines of columns and pediments as you emerge to face the Treasury is breathtaking. Carved in the 1st century BC, this is Petra's most celebrated building. It is thought to have been both a temple and the tomb of a Nabatean king. Its harmonious, well-proportioned façade is adorned with carvings of gods and eagles.
The path heads on past more tomb façades into the open valley basin. Caves line the cliffs all around. To one side, carved into the mountainside, is an 8,000-seat theatre – originally Greek, redesigned by the Romans. To the other is a line of Nabatean royal tombs. On a rocky slope nearby, a Byzantine church houses a fine mosaic floor, laid in the 6th century.
Petra's colonnaded main street continues to the stone-flagged Temenos Courtyard, venue for religious ceremonies in antiquity and still dominated by the giant Qasr Al-Bint temple. Behind the cluster of cafés here, a path leads up to Petra's most impressive façade, the Monastery, originally the tomb of a Nabatean god-king. At roughly 50 square metres, it is larger than the west front of Westminster Abbey. Like the Treasury, it was carved directly from the cliff face. The views are stupendous.
Seeing all this, assuming you take some short breaks and have lunch, will amount to a pretty exhausting nine-hour day. Donkeys and camels are on hand to take some of the strain (with very negotiable prices) from your legs. For JD20 (£19) you can also arrange to ride in a horse-drawn trap through the Siq to the Treasury and back. | |
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