Touring Amman; Petra at Night

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Touring Amman; Petra at Night

Monday was a travel day; we flew Aswan-Cairo and had a layover there, catching an early evening flight to Amman, Jordan.  We have left the Egypt tour and it's just the two of us now.

This morning, we met our Jordan guide and toured the city of Amman.  There’s not much for a tourist to see.   We drove past the Blue Mosque which holds 3000 worshipers: 

We then went to the Citadel, a hilltop collection of buildings and ruins compromising settlements and a fortress dating back to 5000 BCE.  Here are some Roman ruins: 

And the remains of a Byzantine Church: 

It takes some imagination.  Pretty much intact is an Umayyad Reception Hall built on Roman and Byzantine foundations (and using the stone from the Roman and Byzantine buildings): 

There is an archeological museum on the site, and it has some interesting things, perhaps the most interesting is a pair of Neolithic plaster statues from Ain Ghazal.  Ain Ghazal is one of the largest Neolithic settlements in the Near East, discovered in the 1980s.  The statues are pre-pottery lime plaster and date from 7200-6500 BCE.  They’re almost 9000 years old!  This one has two heads: 

We also visited a Roman theater which is still in use: 

We had lunch and then drove almost four hours south to Petra, the center of the Nabatean civilization.  Our hotel is adjacent to the Visitor’s Center, and we had tickets to something called “Petra at Night” which is a sound and light show at the most famous building, the Treasury.  We entered and walked mostly gently downhill (and some steep) through a long canyon (1.4 miles).  It was very dark—you couldn’t see your feet and the ground was quite uneven.  Ultimately, we came around a bend and there it was: 

We found seats and shortly thereafter the light show began: 

And then began storytelling about the Nabateans.  With cartoon characters projected on the Treasury front, and sappy sound, it was pretty awful.  Cheesy.  After about 15 minutes we left to make the uphill walk 1.4 miles back to our hotel in the dark.  Somehow the uphill wasn't as gentle as the downhill.  Tomorrow, a full tour of Petra.  More then. 

Comments

  1. Ralph P. LockeFebruary 24, 2026 at 1:22 PM

    Sorry the sound-and-light show wasn't at the level of the architecture and archaeological significance, etc. Those things vary, I know. But the experience of walking in the dark through those narrow openings in the vast rocks must have been exciting! (And yes, uphill, coming back, must have had some added challenge.)

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