We had rented a car from Avis (made arrangements in advance from home). The location we rented from (King Abdullah Gardens) had a very limited selection of cars and we ended up paying an extra $150 to upgrade ourselves to a Mercedes E200 Kompressor. Without a doubt, this was the best rental car we ever had!
The car ended up costing us 560 JD for 5 days.
Driving about 100 km north from Amman, our first stop was the city of Umm Qais. This was our first introduction to English translation in Jordan. Signs along the highway spelled our destination variously as Umm Qais, Umm Quays, Umm Quais or Umm Qays. Take your pick – it was all the same place. Eventually we stopped looking so much at the English part of the signs and focused on the Arabic portion. (At times, signs were only in Arabic.) It’s helpful then to have a guidebook that lists the names of places in Arabic so you can tell what it looks like! Another point about road signs – there aren’t that many of them. At times you’ll hit a fork in the road and there won’t be a sign. So you’ll need to take best guess as to where the main road is and head off in that direction. On our way to Umm Qais I think we took at least 3 wrong turns. Asking directions from the locals yielded varied results.
Umm Qais was in ancient times, known as Gadara. As a Decapolis City, Gadara was on the far Eastern fringe of the Roman Empire. The ten Decapolis Cities were allowed a great deal of autonomy by the Romans; they ruled the lands surrounding them and even minted their own coins. This political autonomy under the protective realm of Rome was encouraged so as to allow Roman culture to flourish in the farthest reaches of the Empire. The city was founded sometime before 200 BC, but was reduced to rubble by Alexander Jannaeus, king of Judea (103 BC to 76 BC). Pompey restored the city around 63 BC. Over the next few hundred years though the city was fought for, won then lost, then “gifted” from one emperor to the next and from one country to another. Eventually in 747 AD the city was destroyed by an earthquake and finally abandoned.
Today, Umm Qais is situated at the northern tip of Jordan. From the ruins of the old Roman city, one can get a great view of the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights and Syria. Borders in the area surrounding the Golan Heights are questionable – look at a map and you’ll see a few lines drawn in close proximity. Look at the real thing though and you start to wonder what all the fuss is about. Interestingly, (ironically?) even though I was very much in Jordan, my cell phone switched over to an Israeli carrier while I was visiting the ruins. But though there are a few guard towers in sight, down in the valley people go about their daily lives. For an area with such a tormented modern history, everything seems so peaceful when quietly pondered from a windy hilltop …
But even here in this ancient Roman city, it’s hard to separate the land from the history. According to the Bible (Mark chapter 5):
1: And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.
2: And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
And so the story goes, that Jesus walked these very lands, and possibly this very hill where he cast the “unclean spirit” out of a man into a herd of pigs who promptly ran “violently down a steep place into the sea [of Galilee]” where they drowned. The man (whose spirit was now clean) was grateful and “he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.“
As a Roman town Umm Qais has an unusual construction of both black basalt and the more traditional (white) limestone. Many buildings are built out of both kinds of rocks which lend a unique look to the remains of the town. Farther on in the town, the colonnaded street is impressive even today and must have been quite a site in its day. The chariot tracks are still visible on the street.
From here we moved south to another ancient Roman town. Jerash (Gerasa in the old days) is in many ways a Rome away from Rome. Only 48 km north of Amman, Gerasa was another of the Roman Decapolis cities. The Emperor Hadrian visited the city around 129AD and a magnificent arch was constructed to commemorate the occasion. Like Umm Qais to the north, the city was largely destroyed in the earthquake of 747 AD.
In one word, the well-preserved ruins of Jerash are stunning. The main forum features a wide, ovular expanse surrounded by columns which come together to a long colonnaded street running down the main axis of the town. Dotting the hills surrounding the colonnaded street are the remains of many houses, temples and churches. Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Roman town without a large amphitheatre offering a commanding view of the town below.
The ruins of Jerash are in various states of repair. Some portions of the town have been and are still being reconstructed from both the original stones and new ones fresh from the stone quarry. My own perspective on this is mixed – while seeing a town like Jerash restored to its former splendor would be a site to behold, the newly reconstructed entities look fake to my modern eyes and almost seem an affront to the grandeur of the other remains.
Some practical stuff about visiting Jerash – the entrance to the parking lot is poorly signposted. You drive down the main street towards Hadrian’s gate. Eventually a long, unmarked street turns off the main drag towards the parking lot. There’s a restaurant there that offers a buffet or a la carte offerings – it’s not a bad place for lunch but it’s not exactly fine dining either. A packed lunch would be a much faster alternative. You buy your entrance tickets within the “market” that adjoins the parking lot but they only take your tickets from you at the visitor’s centre which is almost a third of the way into the ancient city. Along the way, in the hippodrome the Jerash Heritage Company offers daily performances of the Roman Army and Chariot Experience. The show runs twice daily, at 11am and at 2pm. It sounded a little cheesy to me, and it was expensive too so I took a pass.
From Jerash it was a quick sprint to Ajlun Castle. I don’t mean to imply that Ajlun is so close that it doesn’t take much time to get there, I mean it was almost closing time and we had to rush to get there!
Ajlun is a large fortress built during the Crusades. It’s not a Crusader castle though; it was built to protect against the Crusaders. Izz al-Din Usama, a commander and nephew of Salah ad-Din al-Ayyubi built Ajlun in 1184. It was one of a network of beacons and pigeon posts that allowed messages to be transmitted from Damascus to Cairo in just 12 hours. Over the years the castle saw various uses but was badly damaged in 2 earthquakes in 1837 and in 1927.
The original castle had four corner towers. Arrow slits were incorporated in the thick walls which helped those inside to command a wide stretch of the Jordan Valley below. A 16 metre wide moat that was up to 15 metres deep helped to protect the castle from outside invaders.
The castle is open daily until 4:00. We got there at 3:56. The attendant asked us for tickets, but we didn’t have any as we weren’t sure where to get them. I think you’re supposed to buy them at the visitor centre which you’ll encounter just before you turn left into the parking lot. As we clearly didn’t have tickets and as it was clearly closing time, the attendant was good enough to just wave us in.
We took a quick look through the castle and found we had the whole place to ourselves. We didn’t want to dilly dally though as the attendant probably had to go home and we didn’t want to wear out our (free) welcome. As we were leaving though, the attendant came up and urged us to take a look from the tower at the top of the castle. So up we went and despite a chilly breeze, we were treated to a magnificent landscape below us.
Finally we went back to the main gate, only to find that the attendant had locked us in! Turns out he was making his rounds to ensure that no one was in the castle still. He reappeared, let us out and we gave him a nice tip for his hospitality.
Thus ended a great day. The only thing left was to get back to Amman. We did that, got quite lost looking for a restaurant called Kan Zaman, ended up trying to drive through downtown Amman without having an accident (successful
) and found almost by accident a decent, modern and hip place called Avenue Restaurant located on Abdoun Circle. Worth going there if you can find it!
