Petra

We were excited in anticipation of visiting Petra, the glorious jewel of Jordan.

Petra is a huge site, and you can spend literally days walking around it. There is much more to it that simply the famous “Treasury” that most tourists visit.

There’s a fairly long walk in from the entrance to the first rock carvings and caves.

You walk through a number of narrow gorges.

They carved “gutters” in the rocks to control the water flow.

and they created some reservoirs for holding the water.

Then, through the rocks, we caught our first glimpse of the famous “Treasury”.

Petra was created by the Nabataean civilisation who made it their capital from around the 4th century BC.

Then we hiked on to see more of the “buildings”.

This amphitheatre is carved from the rock rather than being built from stone blocks.

Much of Petra was unfortunately destroyed by a massive earthquake in 363.

We decided to hike to the “Monastery”.

Apart from foot, other modes of transport are available.

Then we reached the “Monastery”. It was much more peaceful up here as the hike separated the travellers from the tourists.

 

Then it was time to head back down.

Petra is truly an astounding site, one of the new seven wonders of the world, and a must on any traveller’s bucket list.