Tour of Israel and Jordan

Mike and Judy Henderson
November 14-27, 2017

I'm going to leave this map up so that you can see where we are.

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11/23/2017 (Thursday and Thanksgiving Day)  We have a nice view of the Dead Sea from our hotel room.  This is the view that we woke up to today.  The hills on the other side of the Dead Sea are in Israel.  At night, you can see the lights of Jerusalem.  It's only 22 miles (straight line) from here to Jerusalem.

We went to Jerash today to see the Roman ruins.  It was about a two hour ride to Jerash and then it was planned that we'd spend two hours touring the ruins and then go to lunch.  We went through Amman to get there. 

We eventually arrived at Jerash and started the tour.  Here's a map of the area.  It's a big facility.

This is Hadrian's Gate.

Just as aside, the Jordan authorities assign a "tourist policeman" to groups like ours.  He was a nice guy.

Here's a panoramic view of the forum.

Then we went to the theatre, which is used, today, for performances.  This is a panoramic view.

A group in native dress was playing drums and a bagpipe for tips.

Then we walked along the higher ground to other sites and I got this back view of the forum.

The temple of Artemis.  It was never finished.

This is the Jerash nymphaeum, where people drew water.

There's a lot more at the site but I have to limit the number of pictures.

We had lunch at a restaurant in Jerash (waaay too much food - I hate to see the waste) and then headed back to the hotel through the traffic of Amman.

I had wanted to take a dip in the Dead Sea to see what it was like, but it was late when we got back to the hotel and fairly cool, so I decided against it.  We had dinner at the hotel and then headed to bed.  Judy and I both have colds.

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11/24/2017 (Friday) We head towards Petra this morning.  Along the way, the bus took a narrow winding road up to Mount Nebo, which is reputed to be the place where Moses saw the Promised Land, and then died.  The exact location of Mount Nebo is unknown and this location was selected as a logical site.

If I remember my biblical stories correctly, God promised Moses that Moses would lead the Israelites out of Egypt and to the Promised Land.  And while Moses would be granted a view of the Promised Land, he would not be able to enter it.

There's a Christian church on the mount, the Memorial Church of Moses, Mount Nebo and we visited the church.

Here's a view of the rear of the church.

A view from the mount.  You can see quite a long way from this site.

I got a close-up of the shepherd  in the picture above.

This sign shows the location and distance to various sites in the Holy Land.

Here's the front of the church.

The interior of the church.

There were quite a few mosaics in the church, from previous churches that were on this site.

Here's an especially nice one, beautifully preserved.

Leaving Mount Nebo we headed to Madaba to see a Greek Orthodox Church that contains the oldest known map of the Holy Land.  The map is in mosaics on the floor of the church - this is a picture that allows you to see it better.  East is at the top.

Here's the altar in the church.

And the map on the floor. Hard to get a good picture of it.

Then we went to lunch at a nice restaurant nearby, reputed to be one of the best in the region.

Then it was back on the bus, heading to Petra.  We stopped for a bathroom break at a place described as "in the middle of nowhere".  Someone commented that it looked like an expensive Pier One Imports.

We finally arrived in Petra.  We're in a hotel very near the entrance of Petra, and will walk in tomorrow morning.

Our adventure continues here