Day 257 – Amman
Exploring Amman during Ramadan
Today was our first full day to explore Amman! From Jordan River Hotel, the closest attraction was the Amman Citadel. Unfortunately the walk was a constant uphill climb!
Amman Citadel
The Amman Citadel is included with the Jordan Pass (otherwise I believe the price is 3 JOD / $6.12 AUD per person). The Amman Citadel, is full of ruins from the Roman Empire. Once again I was not expecting this but it was really cool to see. The main highlights are the relatively new mosque from 730 AD and the Temple of Hercules from 161-166 AD.
Temple of Hercules
The mosque is the most intact building on site. Most of the other buildings are just ruins. We spent around 90 minutes checking out the site and the museum.
Early Bronze Age Cave What remains of the Colossal Roman Statue (Originally 13m high) The Mosque 730 AD Inside view of the Mosque’s roof The Byzantine Church
Jordan Archaeological Museum
I never actually expected this to be inside the Amman Citadel’s grounds. This is actually listed as a separate attraction on the Jordan Passes website. However, you can’t get to it without going to the Citadel.
The museum itself, is a small with around 3-4 rooms. However, the items inside are cool with English descriptions making it well worth a look. My favourite item was the double headed figurine from the the Neolithic period (6500 BC), making it 8,519 years old!
Marble Zeus Head 2nd century AD Copper Mamlouk Canon 1501 AD Bust from 6,500 BC
Roman Theatre
From the Citadel, its very easy to walk to the Roman Theatre. The theatre is extremely cool and included with the Jordan Pass. Standing in the middle, instant takes me back to the film Gladiator. We climbed all the way to the top. I was really impressed with how much you can see from even the back row.
The theatre includes the Jordan Museum of Popular Traditions (also a separate item on the Jordan Pass Attraction List)…
and The Folklore Museum. They are both very small museums, and will take less than 10 minutes to see each. The Folklore museum was undergoing refurbishment when we were there.
Another smaller theatre
Roman Nymphaeum and Market
A short distance from the theatre is another ancient site called the Roman Nymphaeum. It’s not included with the Jordan Pass. However, you can see it well from the side of the road. So we didn’t go in.
But we did cross the road and check out the Fruit and Vegetable market, which was very nice and full of fresh produce.
Rainbow Street
We next walked to the popular Rainbow Street that lots of website have raved about. However, during Ramadan every shop was closed and there were no crowds. It was a very depressing feeling as we were starving.
The street has potential to be a nice area to chill. But maybe, not during Ramadan.
We were very let down with the street and mainly hungry so we walked back to our hotel. Along the way we found one restaurant that was open!
Talet Al Jabal Restaurant & Cafe. I recommend it for two reasons. The place is open regardless of Ramadan and there are also beautiful views of the Citadel. After our large lunch we just headed back to the hotel to chill.
We were the only guests though
