Jordan » Top Things To See

• Sit on top of a ’high place’ at sunset and you’ll quickly understand why the fabled city of Petra (website: www.visitjordan.com) is a jewel in the crown of antiquities: the sandstone of the Nabatean tombs glows ruby-red in the setting sun.

• Step into the magnificent wind-blown desert of Wadi Rum. The wind and occasional flooding has shaped the landscape into a cyclorama of pillars and rock arches - a fit arena for the spectacles of history played out here.

• Plan a visit to Jordan in April or May when garlands of springtime flowers lace the Roman monuments at Um Qais (biblical ’Gadara’), perched high above Lake Tiberius. If you’re lucky, you may happen on a black iris, Jordan’s national flower.

• Catch the hedonistic fever of ancient Rome in a trip to the races at Jerash, a magnificently preserved, Greco-Roman city where daily chariot races are staged at the recently restored Hippodrome.

• Visit The Citadel and Archaeological Museum in Amman. With a selection of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the remains of an Umayyad city and fine views of the Roman amphitheatre, it is a wonder that so many tourists bypass the capital.

• Tour the eastern desert castles (website: www.kinghussein.gov.jo/tourism5.html), built as hunting lodges and trading posts by the Umayyad. Al-Kharanah is one of the few that actually looks like a castle. Nearby Amra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was a bathhouse famed for its frescos.

• Catch up with more recent history at the fortress at Azraq, Lawrence of Arabia’s headquarters during the Great Arab Revolt of 1917, then head east towards Mafraq and explore the deserted black basalt city of Um al Jimal.

• Drive along the historic King’s Highway, a road of Biblical significance. Call in at Madaba, famed for its mosaic map of Palestine, and nearby Mount Nebo, where Moses surveyed the ’Promised Land’ before he died.

• Leave the Highway to visit the village of Mukawir and watch the women of the Bani Hamida workshop (website: www.jordanriver.jo) weave wool into colourful traditional designs. Nearby is Machaerus, the fortress of Herod Antipas, where John the Baptist was imprisoned before being beheaded.

• Even if you’ve seen enough mosaics to last a lifetime, spare time for one more: the magnificent mosaic floors of the excavated church of St Stephen in Um er Rasas are not a UNESCO World Heritage site for nothing.

• Drop in at the Dead Sea Panorama museum to put the lowest point on earth in a more elevated context; the sea is living up to its name and shrinking at an alarming rate.

• Keep an eye open for ibex (wild mountain goats) on a hike in the Dana Nature Reserve. What you miss upon the rocky outcrops, the enthusiastic park rangers will make up for in lively evening chats with one of the eco-lodges.

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.