Mosaics and Moses

After two days in Amman and on the way to Madaba, I visit Mt Nebo, where Moses is said to have seen the promised land and is allegedly buried. The views across the Jordan river and the Dead Sea are amazing and the Moses Memorial church has some wonderfully restored Byzantine mosaics with hunting scenes containing camels, ostriches and even a zebra! There is a nearby tourist centre which specialises in making mosaics the traditional way and I got to place a tiny piece of stone in a tree of life mosaic. 

The town of Madaba is on the famous Kings Highway and is quite chaotic and not very clean – rubbish lies everywhere. But the highlight of Madaba is the number of amazing mosaics in ruined churches.  It was an early Christian centre and still has a number of Christian residents.  It is famous for the oldest known map of the holy land with the cities on both sides of the Jordan river named, including the holy city of Jerusalem. I manage to visit about five churches although signage is almost none existent. I climb a terrifying tower with a panoramic view of Madaba and creep along a spooky crypt with an ancient Moabite well all by myself, and know I will suffer sore legs for days! Many of the places in this part of Jordan are mentioned in the bible, including the famous palace where John the Baptist lost his head.  It is an area steeped in history that is for sure and very fascinating to me. After the luxury of the Intercontinental our guesthouse is a bit basic but it is clean and has pancakes for breakfast - an important thing for me! Having to move your own bags around and no-one fussing over you is a shock at first but quite relaxing really. 

Hugh flies in from India and the next day we go on a tour of Gerash which is a two-hour drive north from Madaba and, once past the built-up area of Amman, a beautiful drive through mountainous regions covered in wildflowers. From the car, we even see amongst the poppies the black iris – Jordan’s national flower. Gerash was an important ancient roman provincial town and covers a vast area – it takes us four hours to walk around the site! That is true dedication. It has two huge temples to Zeus and to Artemis, two amphitheatres, an unusual oval shaped forum and a marble lined main street.  It is a wonderful site and even has some nice mosaics dating from the byzantine era. For most of our visit we wander around alone with only a herd of goats for company, although later in the day visitor numbers, mainly locals, increase.  Not surprisingly tourist numbers are down in Jordan since the Syrian war.