7 Jan - Shobak Castle and Umm-Er-Rasas
Our last day in Jordan. We left Petra in the morning, without
having been able to upload our web pages as
the hotel's WIFI wasn't
working... We headed
north to visit Shobak
castle, built in the
12th
century for the
first king of Jerusalem.
It's
in a pretty poor
state
of repair,
but what is really
impressive is the
underground tunnel
with
365 steps carved in
the rock
which leads down to
a small
underground river. It was pitch
black and
slippery, but
armed with our torch headlights down we
went.
We exited next to
the river via a well
onto a
road leading up
to the
castle. Locals passing
in
a small open
back van stopped to
offer us a lift back
up
to the castle
which
we happily
accepted, climbing in
the back with the grain
!
Next stop at the small castle at Al-Qatrâna to eat our picnic;
well restored, the castle exterior was more
impressive than the
interior.
Then we headed for Umm-Er-Rasas, a Unesco site in the middle of
nowhere. A large brand new visitors centre has
been built, but
unfortunately it's not
yet
open and no leaflets
about the site are
available... It's an
old
fortified town all in ruins with
numerous churches and
some
surviving
arches dotting
the skyline. Nothing
very spectacular,
except
the beautiful
mosaic in one of the
churches that dates back
to the 8th century, depicting towns around
the
delta of
the Nile,
Israel and Jordan.
Then return to Amman, to kill time before our flight to
Bangkok at 00:55...
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| Shobak Castle
- tunnel down to underground river
|
Shobak
castle |
Al-Qatrâna
castle |
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