I’ve never been a fan of tour groups, said Gully Wells in Condé Nast Traveler. “Being herded onto a bus, having to follow somebody else’s schedule, sitting down for every meal with total strangers, and never, ever being alone is not how I want to see the world.” When it came to Jordan, however—a place I’ve always dreamed of visiting but one that seemed dauntingly foreign in every sense of the word—I made an exception. An “eight-day magical mystery” tour seemed the best way to take in this small Arab kingdom that sits atop centuries of history. Arriving in the capital, Amman, I was greeted by two guides: a London University professor with “geniusy hair, English teeth, and snappy red-framed glasses” as well as a local whose grasp of “everything Jordanian” ranged from Neolithic sculpture to the identity of the country’s second most common disease, irritable bowel syndrome. “Between them, there was nothing they didn’t know.”
I sat back like a “contented baby” as we headed north to Jerash, “one of the best preserved and largest Roman cities in the Middle East.” The scale of this ancient metropolis is only hinted at by the sight of the triumphal arch built by the Emperor Hadrian and the Corinthian columns along the Cardo, or main street. We tested the Temple of Zeus’ acoustics, which are “as acute as they were when players declaimed the works of Plautus,” and wandered the Hippodrome, where tracks from chariots “that had thundered past 2,000 years ago” were still carved into the limestone.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
